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Theosophy

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LECTURES AND ADDRESSES

ON THEOSOPHY

THEOSOPHY

RELIGION AND OCCULT SCIENCE

BY

HENRY S. OLCOTT

PRESIDENT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

WITH GLOSSARY OF EASTERN WORDS

LONDON
GEORGE REDWAY

YORK STREET COVEN 1" GARDEN

MDCCCLXXXV

^0 the ^Icmarji of
Prof. WILLIAM GREGORY, M.D., F.R.S.E.

IN GRATITUDE FOR THE CLUE TO PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

FURNISHED TO THE AUTHOR IN HIS WRITINGS

THIS BOOK IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED

CONTENTS

Forewords ... .,,

Theosophy or Materialism — which?

England's Welcome ...

The Theosophical Society and its Aims
The Common Foundation of all Religions
Theosophy : the Scientific Basis of Religion
Theosophy : its Friends and Enemies

The Occult Sciences

Spiritualism and Theosophy
India : Past, Present, and Future ..
The Civilization that India needs
The Spirit of the Zoroastrian Religion
The Life of Buddha and its Lessons

PAGE

9

49
8i

ii6

1 66

198

216

257
284

301
349

FOREWORDS.

In complying with the demand for a London
Edition of my collected Asiatic Lectures and
Addresses, upon Theosophlcal subjects, a few
words of explanation will suffice. At the be-
ginning of last year the original edition was
issued at Madras, in a semi-private form for the
instruction of members of the Theosophlcal
Society, by an officer of the Madras Branch ;
but every page of the present edition has
passed through my hands, has been carefully
edited, and a large amount of original matter
has been added. A number of the lectures have
been translated into the vernacular languages
by native scholars, and circulated at their own
expense ; among them, the discourse upon
the Zoroastrlan religion, of which the ParsI
community of Bombay circulated — If my
memory serves me — twenty thousand copies
in Encrlish and Guzeratl. I recall two In-
cidents in connection with that lecture which

X FOREWORDS,

give it a special interest : it led to the
organization of a Parsi Archceological Society
at Bombay, and was one of the final causes
of the rupture of friendly relations between
the eminent Aryan reformer, the late Swami
Dayanand Saraswati, and the Founders of
the Theosophical Society. That lamented
and illustrious man had been upon the most
intim.ate terms with us, and his great Indian
Society, the Arya Samaj, was regarded as the
sister to our own ororanization. But the
Swami was a very intolerant, not to say
bigoted Aryan, and had no mercy for those
who professed another religion than the Vedic.
My lecture upon the faith of the Parsis was
represented to him as a proof of my having
embraced Zoroastrianism, and was made a
pretext to break off our previously reciprocal
connection. Like many other strict secta-
rians, he could not understand the Theoso-
phical spirit of conceding to the people of
all creeds the right of enjoying their religious
convictions unmolested, nor the duty resting
upon us to help them to discover and live up
to the highest ideal that their respective re-
ligions contain. We are fully convinced that

FOREWORDS. xi

all religions are but branches of one sole
Truth ; and the aim of our public teachings
and private discourses has always been to
force this fact upon the attention of our
auditors. In short, we are not " all things
to all men," as has ungenerously been said,
but the same thing to all men — viz., Theoso-
phlsts, who believe in the essential Identity
of all men, race, caste, and creed, to the con-
trary notwithstanding.

In the several hundred discourses I have de-
livered In India and Ceylon, during the last
six years, nothing more than a popular pre-
sentation of elementary facts has been aimed
at. There are metaphysicians enough to en-
lighten, and confuse, the higher reading
public ; but to one who can follow them
through their demonstrations there are fifty
who lack time, ability, or both. This,
primarily, is my public ; and I shall be
delighted to be the means of awakening
in some of these the desire for profounder
study of problems so absorbing.

I have ever been most deeply interested In
the future of the young, who are just now be-
ginning their responsible career. With reli-

xn FOREWORDS,

gious feeling stifled by our modern system of
education, they are too often avowed agnos-
tics, if not crass materialists. This is lament-
able, the more so, since it is unnecessary.
Materialism is unscientific — utterly, absurdly
so : one need not go far in psychological re-
search to discover so much. But the sciolists
win not admit it, nor take the least pains to
get at the truth. They arouse the righteous
anger of every student of any branch of arch-
aic psychology, by their unworthy behaviour
towards this greatest of sciences. They vio-
late their own canons, by limiting the range of
inquiry to the field of the physical senses,
against the protest of those who have dis-
covered facts lying beyond it, and senses by
which they may be observed. The existence
of those senses is the necessary corollary of
the theory of Evolution, and the Esoteric Phil-
osophy at once proves its validity, and shows
how they may be fully developed. From
experimental Physics we pass to axiomatic
Metaphysics, through the experimental chan-
nel of transcendental Physics. Unless we
admit the unthinkable proposition that there
is a fixed limit to Evolution, it follows that

FOREWORDS. xiii

Western Science in its full development will
ultimately reach the same conclusion at which
Aryan Philosophy arrived ages ago. Hence
Theosophy is the complement both of science
and of philosophy, and as such is entitled to
the respectful examination of the savant and
the theologian.

As it appears that many of the most com-
mon of Oriental terms are unknown here in
the West, except to " old Indians," I have by
request added a copious Glossary, the words
for interpretation having been selected out of
the present volume by that excellent English
scholar, Mr. Richard Heme Shepherd, who
has also prepared, with care, the excellent
index, which adds largely to the value of the
book.

To avoid delay, persons wishing to corres-
pond with the author upon any of the sub-
jects treated upon in these discourses should
address him at the headquarters of the Theo-
sophlcal Society, Adyar, Madras, India.

H. S. O.

Lonhon, October^ 1S84.

THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM—

WHICH ?-^-

Sixty-six years ago Schopenhauer declared his
opinion that the greatest advantage of the nine-
teenth century over previous eras lay in its access
to the Vedas through the Upanishads, and pre-
dicted for the study of Sanskrit literature an
influence upon intellectual development not in-
ferior to that of the revival of Greek in the fifteenth
century.t He spoke of " the sacred, primitive
Indian wisdom " as the best preparation for his
own philosophy. And it is worthy of remark that
the reputation of this great thinker is culminating
at a time when his anticipation, which at the date
of publication must have seemed strange or ex-
travagant to all but a few far-seeing scholars,
is in course of scarcely doubtful fulfilment. A
parallel similar to that suggested by Schopenhauer
has been drawn by Max Miiller, who has also
testified to the already pervading influence of the

* The author thankfully acknowledges the valuable aid given
him in the collation of materials for this chapter, by an English
friend, whose modesty forbids the mention of his name.

t Preface to "The World as Will and Representation'' (Ilal-
dane and Kemp's translation).

i6 THEOSOPHY OR MA TERIALISM— WHICH ?

new studies. In his Address to the Conoress of
Orientalists in 1874, he said: "We know what it
was for the Northern nations, the old barbarians
of Europe, to be brought into spiritual contact
with Greece and Rome, and to learn that beyond
the small, poor world in which they had moved,
there was an older, richer, brighter world, the
ancient world of Rome and Athens, with its arts
and laws, its poetry and philosophy, all of which
they might call their own, and make their own, by
claiming the heritage of the past. We know how,
from that time, the Classical and Teutonic spirits
mingled together, and formed that stream of
modern thought on whose shores we ourselves live
and move. A new stream is now being brought
into the same bed, the stream of Oriental thought,
and already the colours of the old stream show
very clearly the influence of that new tributary.
Look at any of the important works published
during the last twenty years, not only on language,
but on literature, mythology, law, religion, and
philosophy, and you will see on every page the
working of a new spirit.'*' *

Recognizing the fact of this influence, we can
only estimate its probable development in any
direction by looking at the intellectual conditions
prepared for it. The first and most indispensable
of these, in relation to religious ideas, is a relaxa-
tion of dogmatic faith in the recipient community.
So long as spiritual intelligence is restrained in the
* Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iv. p. 342.

THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM—WHICH? 17

hard capsule of any of its formal systems, there
can be no assimilation, and, therefore, no true
influence. It is only at that period of ideal de-
velopment, when the rind of an historical or
traditional religion has served its purpose of
growth and preservation, and permits the libera-
tion of its vital spirit, that the latter can find itself
in the general atmosphere of thought. Nor is this
natural process always recognized for what it is.
Just as in sensuous apprehension the body stands
for the man, so the same principle in religion clings
to its external and familiar form, and sees in the
disintegrating action of intellectual progress only a
negative side and an infidel tendency. But we
may leave out of account a conservatism which is
being visibly submerged beneath the rising level
of intelligence, and ask what essentially it is that
this intelligence demands for the support of its
religious life?

Now, in the first place, it requires that this shall
repose upon an order of ideas not exposed to
destructive invasion. Beliefs are needed which
shall not find their origin and home in ignorance,
to be dislodged from their positions with every
advance of knowledge. Nor must there be any
dependence upon historical evidences, or risk from
their critical examination. Further, the founda-
tions of religion must be such as cannot be im-
paired by the comparative methods of study which
discovery and scholarship have brought into vogue.
The dogmatic fabric of Christianity, so far as its

i8 THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM— WHICH?

basis must be conceived as historical, is already in
a ruinous, or highly-precarious condition. Any
one who questions this must, at least, admit
it to be the opinion of many who represent the
progressive thought and Intelligence of the com-
munity, the classes upon which the influence of
science and inquiry is most apparent. Nor is this
disposition at all confined to those whose special
studies or mode of life may be thought to promote
indifference to religious problems. The wide cir-
culation of such works as " Ecce Homo,"
^' Natural Religion," and others of recent years, Is
sufficient indication of public sympathy with the
scepticism of thoroughly reverent minds. And
without quoting from the Innumerable testimonies
afforded by current literature, it will suffice to advert
to the perfectly open and unrestrained manner in
which these questions are now publicly discussed,
in contrast to the cautious, veiled, and tentative
treatment they received from the sceptical side less
than a generation ago. Our intellectual leaders,
indeed, have ceased to regard dogmatic Christianity
as any longer an open question for modern thought.
There is a general assumption among them that
this, as much as any other special system of religion,
exhibits merely an historical phase of mental
development, and from that point of view alone
retains an Interest for the philosophic mind. And
turning from free-thinkers to the Church itself,
we see much that Is significant of the same general
tendency. Not to insist on a few notorious, and

THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM—WHICH ' 19

many other less ostentatious retreats from positions
felt to be untenable, the most influential of the
clergy are seeking to spiritualize the Christian doc-
trine, without openly offending the popular and
orthodox apprehension of it. Few of them, pro-
bably, are explicitly aware that every advance in
this direction, while it extracts the essential and
interior truth which Christianity possesses In com-
mon with every religion worthy of the name,
is a suppression of Its distinctive character. This
can only be apparent to those who have made a
profound and sympathetic study of other systems ;
a study for which the exclusive pretensions of
Christianity have allowed little encouragement to
its official professors. The practical problem of all
religion being to ascertain the conditions of spiritual
development, in proportion as our conceptions are
freed from the formal, historical, and accidental
elements peculiar to each system, will the substan-
tial identity of all the radical solutions be discover-
able. Thus purified and understood, they will be
beyond the reach of the disproof from positive
knowledge which is sooner or later reserved for all
their temporal and external investiture. Neverthe-
less, they will still involve metaphysical and trans-
cendental assumptions ; though not contrary to
science, they will still be non-scientific ; and, in short,
there will be little to distinguish them from the ethical
forms of a hypothetical philosophy. That brings us to
the further demand which modern intelligence makes
upon its future religion, if it is to have one at al).

20 THE OS 0 PHY OR MA TERIALISM— WHICH?

If Mr. Herbert Spencer is right, true religion is
not the solution of a problem, but the statement
and elevation of the problem itself as inscrutable.*
And herein he finds the reconciliation of science
and religion. Science and philosophy proclaim the
relativity of all positive knowledge ; but Iw that
very statement they affirm the existence of the
Absolute, and concede to religion divested of all
particularity and definiteness an appropriate and
inexpugnable sphere. Although we can say no-
thing of the Reality transcending phenomenal exist-
ence, save only that it is, yet "in this assertion of a
reality utterly inscrutable in nature, Religion finds
an assertion essentially coinciding with her own.
And this consciousness of an Incomprehen-
sible Power, called Omnipresent from inability
to assign its limits, is just that consciousness on
which religion dwells." f

The result at which this distinguished philoso-
pher has arrived, as regards the intellectual possi-
bilities of religion, may thus be expressed in a
single sentence. The foundation is sound, but any
superstructure that can conceivably be reared upon
it must be wholly without warrant. To none can
be conceded even a provisional validity, for the
ultimate good of religious thought is not a developed
consciousness of the unseen, but the recognition of
a perfectly abstract mystery." + For human in-

* First Principles — Part I. : " The Unknowable."
t Op. cil.^ p. 45.

X " Through all its successive phases the disappearance of those
positive dogmas by which the mystery was made unmysterious,

THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM— WHICH? 21

telUgence, therefore, religion does not, and cannot,
exist, since it is essentially the consciousness of the
limits of that intelligence itself. The momentous
questions in which Philosophy and Religion concur
are here pronounced to be illegitimate — the hopeless,
resultless beating of thought against its own
barriers ; prompted, indeed, by a consciousness, but
a consciousness which can never be defined ; testi-
fying to a truth, but a truth which can never be
known.

Regarding Mr. Herbert Spencer as the plenipo-
tentiary of Science in its negotiation with Religion,
it is certain that peace can never be concluded on
the terms he offers. If he has rightly defined the
issue, the conflict must go on till the race is
educated into Agnosticism, or relapses into super-
stition.

But is the issue rightly defined ? Can we accept
Mr. Spencer's statement of the terms of the pro-
blem? Or is it not rather in the inadequate limits he
assigns to, or assumes for, Science itself in the first
place ; and, secondly, in a similarly wrong limita-
tion of the true objects of religious thought ; and,
thirdly, in a consequently fallacious distinction
where there is no essential difference, that we find
the sources of insufficiency and error in his result ?

Within the space of this essay, only a succinct

has formed the essential change delineated in religious history.
And so Religion has ever been approximating towards that coni'
plete recognition of this mystery" (the Absolute) "which is ils
goal " (p. 100).

22 THE OSOPH Y OR MA TERIALISM— WHICH?

explanation can be given of these suggestions,
which introduce us to the whole subject of Eastern
religious philosophy in its most important, yet
least understood relation to the question here
raised. For that question is essentially this :
whether there can be a science of those problems
— a science resting, as all science must rest, upon
experience for its verification — an experience under
conditions possible to all, since they have been
actually realized by some. The reader is here, at
the outset, requested not to make any assumptions
concerning the nature and evidence of the ex-
perience referred to, not to confound it with a
vague and eccentric mysticism, or wdth conditions
of which psychological pathology can give account.
Nor must it be supposed that an appeal is made
to the phenomenal so-called " Spiritualism " of
recent years, whatever claims this may have, in
another relation of the subject, to more attentive
consideration than it has hitherto received. The
experience here spoken of is not the alleged seeing
and conversing with " spirits," but satisfies the
scientific conception of experience in general. In
other words, the conditions of this experience are
defined. To say that these conditions require
much preparation and training for their attain-
ment is only to admit what must be asserted in a
less degree of every physical experiment which
demands a scientific education. And, what is
important to observe, these conditions are just such
as religion has always striven to affirm, but re-

THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM— WHICH? 23

cUiced to exact and Intelligible statement, and
divested of the pietistic language of an immature
and mysterious consciousness. This involves a
conclusion the very re vers'", of Mr. Herbert
Spencer's. The true goal of religion is not mys-
tery, but science — a science dealing with a strictly
verifiable order of facts, though an order trans-
cending that with which physical science, whose
professors wrongfully limit the generic term, is
concerned.

What are the suppositions of Religion with which
it is assumed that " Science " can never deal ?
That there is a world or objective state beyond
the cognizance of our physical senses ; that man is
a subject who, in addition to his physical organism,
has faculties — it may be undeveloped at the present
stage of human evolution, or it may be only dor-
mant— fitted to relate him by immediate conscious-
ness and perception with that other world ; * and
that physical disintegration affects only the mode,
and not the existence, of individual consciousness.
Lastly and chiefly, though in connexion with the
foregoing propositions. Religion carries her account
of man yet higher, asserting his relation to a
Principle which is the source and inspiration of his
moral consciousness, and which manifests itself in
him as the perpetual tendency to realise an
Universal Will and Nature, and to subordinate the
individual limitation. These are the fundamental

'■ " There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body " (i
Cor. XV. 44).

24 THE OSOPHY OR MA TERIALISM— WHICH ?

postulates of Religion, upon which have been built
all the doctrinal fabrics of particular and perish-
able creeds. These are the propositions which
religious intelligence never can dispense with,
which physical science has not refuted, and which
transcendental science affirms.

That this transcendentalism does not pretend to
a cognition of the Absolute, and is thus perfectly
consistent with the doctrine of the phenomenality
and relativity of knowledge, should be already
apparent. What it is opposed to is not Science,
not Philosophy, but Materialism ; and even to
Materialism only in the crude and popular sense of
that term. For that we Western tyros know
nothing of " Matter " that entitles us to say it can
have no other manifestation than in the mode
we call physical — the object of our present senses
— will be granted by every philosophical man of
science. The most that can be said is that we
have no evidence of its existence in any other
mode. " After all," says Professor Huxley, " what
do we know of this terrible ' matter,' except as a
name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of
states of our own consciousness ? "* The material-
ism, if such it can be called, of our really instructed
thinkers, thus amounts only to the proposition that
the world of our present perception, the world as
known to physical science, is the result of a particu-
lar mode of action of an unknown cause. That
mode of action is objectively manifested in the

* " Lay Sermons," p. 142.

THEOSOPHY GR MATERIALISM— WHICH? 25

organism, or, as it is called, the physical basis of
consciousness. The possibility of a transcendental
science is just the possibility of other modes of
action of this unknown cause, resulting in other
conditions, and therefore in another world, of con-
sciousness. The constant misuse of the word
'' supernatural," by which it is made to signify not
only what is altogether beyond the range of pheno-
menal existence, but also every possible mode of
such existence which is not related to our present
organic conditions, ought to receive no countenance
from men of science. " Nature " is co-extensive
with existence, and to meet every reference to
modes of existence, other than under conditions
known to us, with the term " supernaturalism,"
is simply to betray confusion and inaccuracy of mind.
Yet, for this confusion, the absence of any
definite ideas concerning the conditions of post-
mortem existence is largely responsible. On the
great question of individual immortality — of sur-
viving consciousness — Christianity has long ceased
to offer any conceptions by which it is thinkable to
the modern intellect. Some hypothesis, at least, is
required by which this truth may be intelligibly
apprehended. It is probable that a single book by
two eminent men of science has done more to arrest
the growing discredit into which this belief was
falling than all the works of past or contemporary
thcolosrians.*

* ((

The Unseen Universe, or Physical Speculations on a Fuf.ure
State," by Professors Balfour Stewart and P. G. Tait. The public

26 IHEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM— WHICH?

Doubtless, Religion proposes higher aims than
the mere demonstration of conscious perpetuation.
But this is an indispensable pre-supposition, and is
an essential part of that transcendental science
which is absolutely wanting in the West, and which
the East can supply.

The foregoing considerations are intended only
to clear the ground of negative assumptions and
misconceptions which are constantly put forward in
the name of science. Until it has been conceded
that physical science has nothing to object to the
possibility of transcendental science, no way can be
made in describing the methods of the latter, or in
showing that it fulfils the conditions, and offers the
results, demanded by human intelligence at the
present age for a developed conception of religion.

The whole purpose of Religion may be succinctly
defined as the verification in individual human con-
sciousness of metaphysical and transcendental
truth. It presupposes that the faculties of verifica-
tion are undeveloped. It is of necessity a doctrine
of evolution. This truth, which should come home
to the Western understanding at the present time,
is at the foundation of religious philosophy in the
East. But it is not there the abstract or ill-defined
statement which it remains still in Christianity ; it
is a theoretical and practical system for all who
will study and pursue it. So far is it from being

interest in the application of scientific thought to this subject is evi-
denced by the fact that this book, first published in 1877, had
already reached its tenth edition in iSSi.

7'HEOSOPHY OK MATERIALISM— WHICH? 27

true that the East is the land of metaphor and
dream, and the West the seat of practical intelli-
gence, that in all that concerns transcendental
reality or religion, the very reverse is the case.
The right statement, however, is, that the practical
and scientific intelligence of the East has its home
in the higher realities, that of the West in the lower
ones. And if the religious spirit in the West finds
itself in a doubtful or opposed relation to what is
there alone recognized as science, that is due to the
fact that its own sense of the higher realities has
not attained to definite conceptions, but is still in
the undeveloped state of abstract affirmation, or in
the nebulous state of mysticism. Herein consists
the supreme importance of the influence of Eastern
ideas upon the West at the present time. It is a
reaction and an exchange. We are giving to India
the knowledge and advantage of many practical
things relating to our lower needs and nature. In
return she offers us the wisdom acquired by
thought and experience on a higher plane. A few
years ago, before our own dogmatic preconceptions
had yielded to the action of intellectual solvents,
the opportunity would have been premature. The
belief that it is so no longer is the rationale and
justification of the Theosophical Society, the
character and aims of which will be partly apparent
from the following Lectures.

The secret which the East has to impart is the
doctrine and conditions of evolution of the higher
as yet undeveloped faculties in man. But are there

28 THEOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM— WHICH i

such faculties, such possibihties ? The answer to this
question appeals to that rudimentary consciousness
of them from which religion arises. This witness
of a consciousness not yet raised to knowledge is
Faith, which is indeed " the substance of things
hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen."
To those who may think they have it not, or that
it can be explained away, no other conviction can
be brought. Upon the recognition of it depends
the claim to attention of any system professing to
expound the principles of Nature in its entirety.
Such a system is now in course of publication for
the first time. The preparation for it is in the in-
creasing interest of Western culture in Eastern
ideas. Through the labours of Western Oriental-
ists, the abstract doctrines of these religious philo-
sophies are already more or less clearly appre-
hended. But the developed doctrines are not
accessible to the ordinary reader, who, moreover,
finds in the sacred writings as translated for him
much which can be interpreted by no conceptions
provided by Western thought and education. The
Upanishads, for instance, abound with allusions
which require an undiscovered key for their eluci-
dation. And so of the Buddhist writings. The
existence of living schools which are the reposi-
tories of a more intimate knowledge had not been
suspected till recently, and is not yet admitted by
our Orientalists. The Theosophical Society is in
communication with these, and is actively employed
in collecting the information they will impart. Its

THE OS 0 PHY OR 3fA TERIALISM— WHICH? 29

organ, The Theosophist, is chiefly devoted to these
teachings. The well-known book by Mr. A. P.
Sinnett, " Esoteric Buddhism," is perhaps the best
general representation of them, so far as already
understood, which could be given to the English
public. Other books are preparing, and a literature
of Theosophy, or the Esoteric Philosophy of the
ages, is steadily growing. An attempt even to sum-
marize the doctrines in question would be beyond
the scope of this work. Nor must it be supposed
that the Theosophical Society, to which the reader
is introduced in these Lectures, requires subscription
to any creed. Its Fellows are students, not co-
religionists in any sectarian sense. They are, how-
ever, associated by a principle, an idea — Fraternity
— of which, since it may either be misconceived, or
be regarded as quite impracticable, something
should here be added.

In the closing chapter of Lange's " History of
Materialism," it is well said :

*' One thing, however, is certain : if the New is
to come into existence, and the Old is to disappear,
two great things must combine — a world-kindling
ethical idea and a social influence which is powerful
enough to lift the depressed masses a great step

forward The victory over disintegrating

esfoism and the deadly chilliness of the heart will
only be won by a great ideal, which appears amidst
the wondering peoples as a ' stranger from another
world/ and by demanding the impossible un-
hinges the reality" (vol. iii., p. 355).

30 THEOSOPHY OR MA TERIALISM— WHICH ?

And again :

" Often already has an epoch of Materialism
been but the stillness before the storm, which
was to burst forth from unknown gulfs, and to give
a new shape to the world. We lay aside the pen
of criticism at a moment when the social question
stirs all Europe — a question on whose wide domain
all the revolutionary elements of science, of re-
ligion, and of politics, seem to have found the
battle-ground for a great and decisive contest.
Whether this battle remains a bloodless conflict of
minds, or whether, like an earthquake, it throws
down the ruins of a past epoch with thunder into
the dust, and buries millions beneath its wreck,
certain it is that the new epoch will not conquer
unless it be under the banner of a great idea
which sweeps away egoism, and sets human per-
fection in human fellowship as a new aim in the
place of reckless toil, which looks only to the per-
sonal gain " ( ibid.^ p. 361).

It is to such an idea as this that the Theoso-
phical Society seeks to give a formal, if not already
a quite practical expression. It is no new dis-
covery, certainly, this reassertion of the essential
r.nlty of the race, of Brotherhood as a principle to
be elevated above all accidental or historical dis-
tinctions. It is, on the contrary, the one vital
ethical result out of religious thought. Is it there-
fore a truism too barren or abstract to form the
basis of practical association ? Is it nothing to ex-
tricate It from the diversities of dogma in which its

rilEOSOPH V OR MA TERM LISM— WHICH ? 3 1

significance is buried, to renew it in the hearts of
men and women of all sects and creeds as the vow
and obligation of their lives? Is it an objection
that the Society does not come before the world
with a single, well-devised application of the prin-
ciple? Those who. would offer this as an objection
cannot have realized how much more than abstract
assent is implied in the recognition and study of
the principle itself The conquest of selfishness
and prejudice in all their forms, national, social
sectarian, political, private, is the aim which
grows in every individual mind out of a living
sense of human fraternity. Its applications on the
wider scale of law and co-operation must be self-
developed. They are not to be the fanatical im-
pulses of half-educated " world-betterers." They
will emerge spontaneously and surely from the
unity of spirit and habit acting upon an intelli-
gent and well-informed apprehension of the pro-
blems, and from the subordination of self-interest.

Many practical problems which seem insoluble
to individual thinkers can only find their solvent in
an altered disposition of mankind. All religions
seek to effect this change of disposition in the in-
dividual consciousness. But nearly all religious
systems have preferred their specific and distinctive
tenets to their true universal basis and inherent
tendency, and have thus become the most dis-
cordant of influences in the world they would re-
o-enerate. Therefore it is that the Theosophical
Society has no room for propagandists of any

32 THEOSOPHY OR MATERTALISM— WHICH?

exclusive creed. Its principle indeed requires that
none of its members should even mentally assert
the exclusive sanctity of his own religious denomina-
tion. In India, the Society has been opposed and
denounced at every turn by Christian mission-
aries ; and if on its side it has seemed to evince
hostility to Christianity, that is because its represen-
tatives identify it with those arrogant pretensions
v/hich make peace, charity, and fraternity impossible.
If we point out to the natives of India that the form
of Christianity taught by these zealots is becoming
more and more discredited among the best religious
thinkers of the West itself, our doing so belongs
rather to our duty as educated Europeans than to
any polemical disposition. The fact that we number
in our ranks, not only many avowed Christians,
but also some conspicuous members of the Chris-
tian clergy, may be referred to in relation to a mis-
understanding from which even some of our own
Fellows in England have not been free.

We have spoken of the advocacy of the principle
of Universal Brotherhood, or, to avoid the charge
of Utopianism, of a kindly reciprocity and mutual
tolerance between men and races, as a primary
object of the Theosophical Society. We can"
happily point to the rapid extension of that
organization to various countries, and the actual
gathering together into the same of many persons
of the most incongruous sects, and hitherto anti-
pathetic nationalities, as substantial proof of its
practicability. But this is only one out of the three

THEOSOFHY OR MA TERIALISM— WHICH ? 33

declared objects of the Society, as the following
pages show. Its second object is the promotion
of the study of Aryan and other Eastern literature,
religions, and sciences. Schopenhauer wrote even
more wisely than he knew when making his pro-
phetic utterances in 18 18. For, not only are the
Uplianishads inestimably rich repositories of philo-
sophical and spiritual thought, but also in the great
body of Sanskrit, Pali and Zend literature is an in-
exhaustible mine of noble and inspiriting thought.
We might despair of ever making any important
contributions to this department of knowledge, were
we dependent wholly upon our own labours ; for
the proper work of the Founders of the Society is
rather that of organization than research. Having,
however, the active aid of many of the most learned
native scholars of Asia, and through them access to
the rest, we feel confident that the movement we
are directing will result in substantial gain to the
scholar, the moralist and the philosopher. The
Society's third declared object relates to the investi-
gation of the unfamiliar laws of Nature and the
faculties latent in man. An inordinate prominence
has been given to the psychic phenomena produced
by Madame Blavatsky, which, however striking in
themselves, are nevertheless but a small part of
Theosophy as a great whole. To a very limited ex-
tent these questions are considered in the following
Lectures ; but for full details the reader must be re-
ferred to the literature of the Occult sciences, now
being constantly enriched by new publications.

34 THKOSOPHY OR MATERIALISM— WHICH?

No amount of reading, however, will suffice for a
knowledge of the subject; at best, it gives but a
smattering of information as a basis of beHef. Nor
can a teacher develop the psychic powers in a way
to make them docile and trustworthy to the
student's will. Psychic growth is the fruit of self-
mastery ; the Initiate is, more than any one else,
" a self-made man ! " The Theosophical Society
docs not make adepts : it but hints at their exist-
ence and points to the path.

ENGLAND'S WELCOME. '=■

Mr. Chairman,— On behalf of the General
Council of the Theosophical Society, on Madame
Blavatsky's behalf, and on my own, I thank you and
this assemblage of colleagues and well-wishers for
your cordial welcome. That a company so brilliant
and distinguished should have gathered here for this
kindly purpose, is to us most gratifying and, I
may add, surprising. We have not been accus-
tomed to such treatment at the hands of the people
of our race, but rather to its opposite. Before
leaving India, with the recollection still vivid of
the abuse and obloquy we had to endure in
that country, we should not have dared to
anticipate it. I take this to mark a new era and a
turning-point in our Society's history. All we
have ever asked is that we might be heard with
patience by the cultured classes of Europe ; and
here I see many representatives of British Science,
Art, and Literature, of Diplomacy and of Society,
assembled to hear what we have to say. There must
be a substantial power in Theosophy, since it has

* An Address delivered at Prince's Hall, Piccadilly, London,
July 21, 1S84, in response to a greeting to the Founders of the
Theosophical Society by the Pondon members, through the Pre-
sident of the local Lodge.

36 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

become so widespread a social movement In
various countries ; without the adventitious help
of august patronage, of great capital, or of fanatical
support. It has become a theme for discussion at
hundreds of British hearths, and, spreading from
the most thoughtful to the most frivolous circles, is
now actually noticed by " Society " journals as the
fashionable talk of the day at the tea-tables of
Belgravia and in the Holy Land of the West End !
These " fashion-writers " speak of it as a whim of the
moment, to be forgotten, like the sun-flower and
crutch, for to-morrow's caprice. But it vrill not —
mark me, it will not — be forgotten. The day's folly of
the drawing-room Is ephemeral as Its pleasure ; but
the ideas provoked by Theosophy eat Into the mind,
and cannot be dislodged. For they pertain to the
secret causes of joy and sorrow, of our future,
of our very existence Itself, and these cannot be
dismissed at will. Let the jesters jest on, with
their squibs, lampoons, and comic poems : they
are but turning the mill-stonns of Destiny,
which grind the grist of the nation's thought.

My gifted countryman, Mr. Moncure Conway,
said the other day that every idea must finally come
to this metropolis to be tested and receive its mint-
mark. He was right ; and we are now bringing
you the golden ore of Theosophy, dug from the
long-closed Intellectual mines of our Asiatic pro-
genitors. We ourselves put it into the melting-pots
of Western criticism, and ask that it may be tested,
amalgamated with the purest silver of Western

ENGLAND'S WELCOME. 37

thought, and then thrown into circulation. We
have come to the bar of British public opinion to
plead the cause of humanity, which sorely suffers
through ignorance of the laws of spirit, soul, and
mind, as well as those of the body. We do not
pretend to leadership ; but we demand a seat in the
Council which is deliberating on the master pro-
blems of Religion and Science. The Materialis':,
Positivist, Agnostic, and Secularist, are already
there, in conspicuous places, jostling the Ecclesi-
astic; crushing religious sentiment, undermining
spiritual aspirations, blackening the sky of sunny
Intuition, robbing this reading and inquiring
age of the last vestige of belief in the existence of
man after the death of the body, and uncovering
the black and yawning abyss of oblivion and ex-
tinction into which they would have us leap. The
Church has anathematised in vain ; the sharpest
blades of theological dogmatism have broken like
weak reeds upon the steely helms of the Biologist
and Evolutionist. The party of Religion have
been forced from their stronghold in the human
heart, and the party of Materialistic science have
usurped the conquered ground. It has come at
last to such a point that well-read men can hardly be
induced to discuss whether the creed of Christendom
is in extremis or not ; regarding it as a waste of
time, since none but the illiterate doubt the fact.
That Rubicon, they aver, was crossed long ago.
The victorious cohorts of Freethought are gathering
to the trumpet-call of Darw^in, Huxley, Haeckel. of

38 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

Mill, Clifford, Lewes and Greg. They are building
temples to their new god, Protoplasm, out of the
debris of the world's old faiths, as the early Chris-
tians utilized the shrines of the Pagan deities to
build churches. It is the old, old story of
evolution, change and growth ; the story that can
be read in every sociological evolution in the history
of our race. Whether by voice, or book, or sword
the change is brought about, come it always
must. The seed-germ of the next race, or civiliza-
tion or creed, can only germinate as the dry husk
decays, within which its potentiality was secretly de-
veloped. The friends of Materialism hope that it
may be the outcome of the destruction of Spiritu-
ality. Shall it ? That is the question put by the
Theosophical Society to you, thinking men and
women of Europe. For the choice is narrowed to
this : either materialistic Atheism* and Nihilism —
the conception of a short life between two blanks —
or Theosophy. Say what }'ou may, laugh as you

* The use of the expression " materialistic Atheism " in this con-
nexion has been made the pretext by seme not very friendly critics
to charge me with a belief in a personal God. It will be impossible
for any one to point to a single sentence ever spoken or written by
me which would give colour to such a charge. Upon a hundred
public occasions I have defined the " God " of the Founders of our
Society to be identical with the Universal Principle — formless,
changeless, devoid of the attributes of personality and of limitation
— which is postulated by the highest metaphysicians of Asia. This is
made very plain even in the few Lectures that have been preserved
out of several hundreds delivered in India and Ceylon to constitute the
present volume. And it is equally clear that, whatever may be my
personal views or those of INIadame Blavatsky, no one in our
Society is responsible for them, save ourselves

ENGLAND'S WELCOME. 39

will, mock as you choose — that is the issue of to-
day. Religion has but one foundation — Theosophy;
a Church built upon any other is as a house built
in the air. Let not the Christian tell me that the
Bible offers its " scheme of salvation and its blessed
promises;" nor the Jew that the inspired scrolls
of the Law bear the divine messages of Sinai and
the Prophets ; nor the Hindu that the sacred Veda,
if read with faith and understanding, reveals all trutli
that man is fit to receive, and that the Upanishads
are full of the glory of spiritual life. Let all this be
granted to each ; yet these books have no
meaning to the spiritually blind eye of our sceptical
generation, nor the words of their most authoritative
expositors any sound to the faith-dulled ear of the
youth whose University has taught him to believe
nothing he sees or hears until it is experimentally
proven. It is absolutely a waste of time to
appeal to a sentiment of loyal faith in ecclesias-
tical authority long since practically extinct. The
only chance of dislodging Materialism from its
fortress is to prove it unscientific^ and Esoteric Philo-
sophy scientific. It is with the hammer of science
that its idols, if they are to be broken at all, must
be demolished. We, Founders of the Theosophical
Society, planted it upon that basic general proposi-
tion, as upon a rock that can buffet the storms of
criticism. And the experience of nine years
since come and gone has convinced us that we
were right. Our work has extended to America,
Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia — in all which

40 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

continents we have now established branches of the
parent Society ; we have met and discussed with
many superior minds of different nationahties ;
and our conclusion is that if we had the work of
founding our Society to do over again, we could
not choose a broader, surer, safer basis of
activity than that which you will find sketched out
in its three avowed or declared objects. Those
three foundations - stones are : to promote a
feeling of brotherhood among men, regardless of
race, creed, or colour ; to promote the study of the
Aryan and other religions, philosophies, and
sciences ; and to promote experimental research
into the hidden laws of Nature and the latent
capabilities of man. The canons of modern Science
are equally the canons of ancient Oriental philo-
sophy. If the one rests upon fact so does the
other. Our Western college professors teach us to
take nothing upon faith ; our masters of the
Eastern school do the like. The motto written on
the title-page of your well-known journal, i\^(f?//^;'^, is:

'* To the solid ground
Of Nature trusts the mind Avhich builds for aye."

Wordsworth.

The legend that heads our Society's journal, the
T/icosophist/\s'. "There is no religion higher than
Truth." The Lord Buddha, revered as the greatest
among adepts of the Occult science, when asked by
the Kalama people how they might know which
religion was the truest, answered that they
should believe nothing written or spoken, by any

EA' GLAND'S WELCOME. 41

teacher of any epoch, upon mere authority, but
only when the teaching harmonized with reason,
and would stand the test of examination. That
is the attitude which we likewise adopt. If
the Theosophical Society had come forward
with a claim of infallibility for its ideas or its
teachers, discouraging criticism and shirking
inquiry, it would have been turned out of court on
its first appearance. But since it has spread from
city to city and from land to land, until it can now
count over a hundred branches, it is clearly in
accordance with the spirit of the age, and meets a
real want of humanity. It has an unmistakeable
vitality, and has attained a development that pre-
sages a great future for the movement. Month
after month fresh branches spring up, and new lines
of usefulness open out. Four days ago I organized,
in the very stronghold of Presbyterian intolerance,
the " Scottish Theosophical Society," and after a
Lecture at Edinburgh one of the leading clergymen
of the city took my hand in brotherly kindness,
declaring that the sentiments I had just expressed
to my audience were identical with those he
was wont to preach from his pulpit. So, too,
the freethinking journalists of Paris have de-
clared our Society's cardinal idea of fraternal
concert between the best thinkers and truest
men of all races for research after the funda-
mental facts of human existence, to be in strict
harmony^with the principles of French republican-
ism ; while, at the same time, the reactionary

42 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

Ultramontanes of the Royalist party have, in their
organ, Le Defcnseiir, bidden us a hearty welcome
as to those who may save France from the moral
decay brought about by crass materialism. Pass-
ing on to the Orient, you have only to consult the
files of the native press of India and of Ceylon, to
discover how enthusiastically the masses of those
ancient countries speak of our Society and its
work. In these Western communities most people
regard us as innovators, trying to " float " a new
delusion; but throughout the East it is accounted the
chief merit of Theosophy that its teachings are
but the uncoloured recapitulation of the grand philo-
sophy taught to Egypt and Greece by their holy
sages, and embalmed in their ancestral literature.
Seven years ago scarcely a Hindu college graduate
dared to confess a feeling of respect for the national
religious philosophy ; now the imported Western
scepticism is going out of fashion, and Indian and
Sinhalese youth are joining our Society, and
beginning to emulate the piety, temperance,
honesty and truthfulness of their noble forefathers.
Within the past twelvemonth these cherished young
colleagues have founded, under our auspices, twenty-
seven schools and colleges for Sanskrit teaching,
have published books, have founded Theosophical
journals, and have organized religious classes or Sun-
day schools in various parts of the Indian Peninsula
and of Ceylon. The movement has spread
to the United States, despite the absence of its
Founders, since 1878, in the East. Within the

ENGLAND'S WELCOME. 43

past year, new branches have been formed, a Theo-
sophicaljournalhas been started, other charters have
been appHed for, a central governing Committee or
Board has been organized,and two delegates of note —
one,an author and journalist attached to the editorial
staff of an influential New York paper, the other, a
man of scientific repute, and a college professor —
have come across the Atlantic to meet the Founders
and to arrange for future Theosophical work in
America. Within the next two days, I go to Germany
to hold a conference of certain of the ablest philoso-
phical writers of the day, and to launch the bark
of Theosophy upon the deep sea of German thought.
The seed planted by Mme. Blavatsky and my-
self at New York in 1875, when we organized
the Society, is fast growing into a banyan tree, whose
roots are striking dow^n into the subsoil of human
nature, and whose shade will one day be broad anci
dense enough to shelter a multitude of students of
the Problem of Life. And let me here candidly
and gratefully confess how much of our success in
English-speaking countries is due to the world-
wide circulation attained by The Occtdt World and
Esoteric Bitddhisin, those tw^o profoundly interesting
and valuable books of our eminent colleague, Mr.
A. P. Sinnett. Here, in the land and city of his
birth, I thank that loyal friend and true-hearted
Englishman, whose courageous and unselfish advo-
cacy of a discovered truth is — well, w4iat one always
expects from an Englishman of that sort !

As mine is the task of giving you a historical re-

44 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

trospect, I must briefly note what the Theosophical
Society has accomplished under each of the three
heads of work it sets itself First, as to the question
of forming the nucleus of a Brotherhood of
Humanity. We have effected much in this direc-
tion ; much of a visible and practical character.
Upon our rolls are inscribed the names of some
thousands of men and women who represent
many races and most of the great creeds. Our
Rules positively prohibit the discussion, at our
meetings, of questions likely to stir up strife
about religion, caste, race, and politics. All such
discordant issues are left outside our threshold.
We meet as friends, whose declared and only pur-
pose is to exchange ideas and to help each other to
get at the truth. The wisest are our Theosophical
aristocracy. The rich man is not esteemed in our
Society for his wealth, nor the poor man despised
for his poverty. The tie of a common interior
nature makes us see and know each other
as brethren in Theosophy. The antagonism
of sex is unknown among us : we are not
concerned as to the relative supremacy of man or
woman, the test of excellence is the capacity of
their respective minds ; the brightest is the
most respected, and the highest place in our
esteem is occupied by the one most devoted
to the cause of Theosophy, and who best illus-
trates in daily conduct its lofty ideal. It was
a sight to behold with joy when, at the celebration
of the Society's eighth anniversary, at Madras in

ENGLAND'S WELCOME, 45

December last, more than one hundred delegates —
Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Mussulmans
and Agnostics — were gathered together from the
four quarters of the globe to report the progress of
the movement in their several countries, and to bring
the vows of fealty from their various branches.
The possibility of a practical confraternity upon
the basis of mutual reciprocity and kindly tolerance
was then and there triumphantly proved.

We then saw that, while it is impossible, save in
Utopia, to hope for a real brotherly union between
nations or communities upon the external side of
human nature, yet this may be effected quite easily
upon the plane of the inner and nobler self

Secondly, as to the study of the ancient philoso-
phies and religions. Here, too, great results have
been achieved. It would be vain to search the mysti-
cal writings of modern times for so great a body ot
valuable practical teaching upon these questions as
the still meagre and budding Theosophical literature
already offers. I venture to say, for example, that
there can be found in no Western author so many
lucid expositions of occult philosophy and meta-
physics as have been given recently in the Theo-
sophical circles of London and Paris by our
gifted and beloved young Brahman colleague, Mr.
Mohini, who sits beside me on this platform. This
lineal descendant of the Raja Rammohun Roy has
shown himself worthy of that grandsire whose
learning and elevated spirituality of character are
remembered in England, as well as in India, to this

46 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

day, with deep affection. Besides the exegetical
works of Mr. Sinnett, there is Madame Blavatsky's
encyclopaedic Isis Unveiled, now in its seventh
edition, which traverses a vast domain of science
and rehgion, and there are various pamphlets by
different authors, all relating to the Asiatic side of
the subject. On the side of Esoteric Christianity
and the Hermetic Doctrine, the eloquent work of
Dr. Anna Kingsford and Mr. Edward Maitland,
The Pcj'fect Waj', will be reckoned among the great
books of the century. The TJieosopJiist, a monthly
magazine, issued at the Society's headquarters at
Madras,* and now in its fifth volume, has among
its contributors some of the ablest educated Hindus
living, who during the past five years have been
expounding their national Sanskrit literature.

Thirdly, and lastly, as to researches into the
occult side of Nature and of Man. What the
mystical writers of Greece and Rome, of Germany,
France, Italy, and England, had hinted at in this
direction ; what was figured in the pictographs of
Egypt, in the sculptures of Nineveh and of Central
and South America, in the cylinders, bricks, and
stones of Babylonia and of other countries ; what
was embalmed though masked in folk-lore,
legend, saga, and national customs, has been
verified and corroborated by the individual re-
searches of certain of our members. While the
Christians are sitting almost speechless, unable

* Mr. George Redway, the publisher of the present vokime, is the
London agent.

ENGLAND'S WELCOME. 47

to confute the dogmatic assertion of the infidel
biologist, that human consciousness isimpossibleout-
side the physical organism, and that man is extinct
when it is dissolved, we Theosophists have experi-
mentally proved its utter falsity. We have proved
it by projecting ourselves out of the body, with the
retention of full consciousness and volition, acling
and observing as readily as any of us can do in his
fleshy encasement. We liave proved that there
is an inner range of percipient faculties, more acute,
and mAich more unerring, than " the five gateways "
of the outer body. We have verified the exist-
ence of two sublimer states of matter than the form
we are told about by our fashionable scientific
authorities. The " Unseen Universe," or subjective
world, of Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait has
ceased to have for us the aspect of a hypothesis,
for this terra incognita, this Polar circle of official
science, has been explored by us, with the adepts
of the East as our guides and teachers. Some of
my colleagues in the Theosophical Society so revere
the characters of these living Masters as to think
it almost a crime that I should profane their secret
by naming them to a mixed audience. But I
am imbued with the American, rather than with
the Oriental feeling as to such matters. I know
as a fact that these grand men are not to be moved
as to their inner selves by anything, good or ill,
that may be said of them : the reviler's abuse but
recoils upon himself, as, in the Eastern proverb, the
dust blows back into the eyes of the fool who throws

48 ENGLAND'S WELCOME.

it against the wind. And, as an old student of
Psychology, I feel the enormous vitality the subject
derives from the fact that these Masters live as really
for us as their predecessors did for Apollonius,
Plato, and Pythagoras ; that they can be seen, and
conversed with, as they have been seen and con-
versed with by many among us ; and that they
furnish in their own persons a tangible, actual ideal
of a hitherto unsuspected human perfectibility.
And so realising, I shall, until they command me to
keep silence, continue to bear testimony to their
existence, to their benevolent philanthropy, to their
angelic qualities, mental and moral. To them,
through their agent, Madame Blavatsky, I owe the
first glimpse of the true light. By thenri I was
taught to detect its Sflow under the exoteric masks
of the world's various faiths, and to know it for
their silvery psychic spark. They taught me to see
that the colour of my brother man, his dress, his
formal creed, his social prejudices, were but the
results of his external environment, and but tinted,
without obstructing the inner shining of the im-
mortal Ego: as the cathedral panes give for the
watcher outside their glowing hues to the light that
burns in the chancel and along the aisles. To them
my life-long fealty is pledged. My earnest hope -is
that I may not fail in my duty ; my chief desire
that, through the extension of the Theosophical
Society, I may succeed in causing hundreds as
hungry as myself after spiritual truth to know of
their existence and partake of their teaching.

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
AND ITS AIMS.^

When a new Society asks a hearing of the world
it is sure to be challenged. The public has that
vested right, and none but fools will object to its
exercise. Infallibility is out of fashion, notwith-
standing the Roman conclave of July 13th, 1870,
where, as the Syllabus of the Vatican Council tells
us, the Holy Ghost sat with the Bishops and judged
with them. Men now-a-days take nothing on faith ;
the era of inquiry and proof has come.

The Theosophical Society expects no exemption
from the rule ; has asked none ; and my presence
before this great audience, so soon after the arrival
in India of our Committee, shows our readiness to
give a reason for its existence. We believe it was a
necessary outgrowth of the century. I hope to
show you that the hour demanded its coming, and
that it was not born before its appointed time.

Our society points to four years of activity as
one proof that there was room for it in the world.
And this activity, please observe, was not in the

* An Address delivered at the Framji Cowasji Hall, Bombay,

23id March, 1879.
D

So THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

midst of friendly environments, with no one to
question or oppose, but in the enemy's country, with
foes all about, public sentiment hostile, the press
scornful and relentless, traitors working with honest
opponents to break up our organization and neutra-
lize our labours. Occupying, as most of us did,
positions of some influence, we have had to suffer, in
ways that will suggest themselves to each of you,
for the privilege of free speech. While the press
has lampooned us, in writing and pictorial carica-
tures, by the clergy we have been denounced as the
children of Satan, doomed to eternal damnation
along with the wretched " Heathen."

We throve on opposition. The more we were
abused, the greater interest was created to know
what the Theosophical Society really was, how
strong, and what were its aims? These questions,
which have been put to us in every possible varia-
tion since our arrival here, we answered, without
concealment or equivocation, face to face, eye to
eye. We had nothing to be ashamed of, whether
in doctrine, motive, or deed, and so we spoke — and
now speak — with the boldness of one who loves the
truth and hates a lie.

All this discussion, carried on for months, even
years, in journals of world-wide circulation, drew to
us large nun^bers of sympathizers. Scattered
throughout America and Europe were men and
women of intelligence, influence, courage, who had
long been interested in the topics to which we
applied ourselves, and who needed only such a ral-

AND ITS AIMS. 51

lying-point as our society offered, to combine their
strength. So they joined us, cheering us by their
activity of deed no less than by their friendliness
of word. A branch society sprang up in England,
under the presidency of a barrister of the highest
capabilities, and the conjoint direction of a Univer-
sity professor, and of medical and other professional
men. Other branches were formed in Russia,
France, Greece, and elsewhere. One is now form-
ing in Ceylon. Our membership increased to thou-
sands. We received as brothers, with equal
cordiality, Hindus, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists, Jews,
and free-thinking Christians. At different times
the press has described us as specially represent-
ing each of those sects ; a proof, certainly, of our
strict impartiality and the general resemblance all
these great religions have to each other at their
roots. There was room for all upon our platform,
and none need jostle his neighbour. What that
platform is, will be made clear before I have done
speaking.

Believing it good generalship to force the fight-
ing when one feels sure of his supports, we not only
struck blow for blow at our antagonists, but con-
trived more than once to put them on the defen-
sive. Often without obtruding ourselves upon
public notice, we aroused an interest in everything
related to the East. Oriental science, literature,
chronology, tradition, superstitions, magic and
spiritualism, afforded themes for our allies to speak
and write upon, throughout the two parts of

52 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Christendom. Those who have seen the Western
journal and periodical literature during the past
four or five years, must have been struck with the
apparently sudden growth of a deep interest in
such matters. They will also have noticed the in-
creased number of books published on Oriental sub-
jects. How much of that activityis traceable directly
and indirectly to the Theosophical Society, we, only,
know who have been in the thick of the fighting.

We have been asked, scores of times, why our
Society has established as yet no periodical, nor
issued any volumes of Reports. Our answer is that a
wider activity could be achieved by utilizing presses
already established. We have thus reached mil-
lions of readers, where, through any special organ
of our own, we might only have caught the eye and
provoked the thought of a few thousands. How
many in India, think you, have read about the visit
of our Committee and its objects ? and how many
would have done so if we had depended upon a
journal of our own ? Papers in English and the
several vernacular tongues have been sent us, and
letters from the extreme North and the extreme
South have come to us, from those wdio have an
interest in our work. It has been remarked at the
West that no Society has, w^ithin so short a time,
been talked about in so many different countries
as ours. We gratefully accept the fact as proof
that we are welcomed to a standing-room in the
arena of the century.

And now what is the Theosophical Society, and

AND ITS AIMS. 53

what are its aims ? How much appears upon the
surface, and how much is concealed ? What is the
plan of work ? How is the public to be benefited
by the Society, and is mutual co-operation practic-
able ? What attitude do we assume towards re-
ligious beliefs, and what ideas, if any, does the
Society hold about God and his government ? Do
we believe in the immortality of the human soul,
and, if so, on what grounds ? What importance
do we attach to the study of the occult sciences, so
called? What use has been made, by many or few
of our Fellows, of any knowledge of those sciences?
To what highest good do we aspire, here or here-
after ? What are our ideas of the next world ?
These questions j^// have come here to ask, / to
answer. I have copied them from written docu-
ments, handed to me since this address was an-
nounced by the native committee. And here are
others propounded by one who wishes to join us: —
On one's becoming a member, is any course pre-
scribed for him to follow with a view to his con-
tinual progression and the acquisition of mastery
over his baser nature ? What constitutes the differ-
ence between the degrees in the Society ? Will
instruction be imparted to individual members
or groups, on what subjects, and how often ?
Webster defines Theosophy as " a direct as
distinguished from a revealed knowledge of God,
supposed to be attained by extraordinary illum-
ination, especially a direct insight into the pro-
cesses of the Divine mind and the interior rela-

54 THE THEOSOPHTCAL SOCIETY

tions of the Divine nature." How far does
this agree with the doctrines of the Theosophical
Society ? Is a member of the Arya, Brahmo, or
Prarthana Samaj debarred from joining it, or will
his joining affect his position in relation to the
social rules and duties of his caste ? How much
time would be required to become proficient in a
degree ? Will any library be established and ac-
cessible to the Fellows ? Will there be social
gatherings to discuss Oriental philosophy and
kindred subjects ?

We have here seventeen inquiries, covering
ground enough for thirty-four lectures, but I will
attempt to cursorily glance at all in the hour
at my disposal. All, except those of a strictly
personal character, have been treated at great length
and with signal ability by Mme. H. P. Blavatsky,
Corresponding Secretary of our Society, in her " Isis
Unveiled," a work which a well-known London jour-
nal. Public Opinion, styled " a stupendous monu-
ment of human industry," and which the Neiv
Yoi'k Herald considered, " one of the great achieve-
ments of our century." Those who care to really
sound this question of the relative supremacy of
ancient and modern science and religion can easily
do so, as the work is to be had of our booksellers.

But, to begin with our answers, I affirm then
that everything essential, as regards principles,
recommendations and ideas, appears upon the sur-
face of our 'Society, and nothing is concealed that
sJionld be made known. We do not say one thing

AND ITS AIMS, 55

and mean another. We have no mental reserva-
tions— we resort to no equivocations. What we
believe, we say — always and everywhere. If we
have survived all the battles through which we have
passed ; if, after a four years' struggle against
obstacles, in the very heart and stronghold of
Christendom, we are a strong, compact, successful
Society, daily increasing in influence, having daily
accessions of able coadjutors ; if, at this juncture,
our outposts are entrenched in the most widely
separated countries, and garrisoned by men of the
most diverse speech, complexion, and ancestry ; if
here, upon the threshold of Aryavarta, we find our
hands clasped with fraternal warmth by the Hindu,
the Parsi, the Jain, and the Buddhist ; it is because
we have not feared to speak the truth at any cost.

When our Society was organised — at New York
in 1875 — the very first section of the bye-laws
adopted, after fixing upon our corporate title,
affirmed that the object of the Society was to
obtain knowledge of all the laws of nature. This
covers the whole range of natural phenomena, and
everything that concerns mankind and his environ-
ments. The inaugural address of the President was
delivered, November 17th, 1875, and in it, after
attempting a comparison of our Society with the
neoplatonists and theurgists of ancient Alexandria,
the fire -philosophers of the middle ages, and the
ancient and modern spiritualists, and finding no
exact parallel, I said : " We are neither of these,
but simply investigators of earnest purpose and

56 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

unbiassed mind, who study all things, prove all
things, and hold fast to that which is good. We
seek, inquire, reject nothing without cause, accept
nothing without proof: we are students, not
teachers." Does not this utterance of 1875 answer
most of the questions of 1879 ?

The Society has its secrets, nevertheless; but they
harm no one. Composed, as we are, of people who
live at the two extremities of the earth, and who
speak different tongues, we have the same necessity
as Freemasons for some means of mutual identi-
fication, in special cases. These are afforded by
certain signs and tokens which, of course, are
withheld from strangers, and are changed as required.
Again, operating, as we do, mainly in Christian
countries, in some of which (as in France, Spain,
and Russia, for instance) religious intolerance pre-
vails, the corporate perpetuity of our branches
would be imperilled by allowing our membership to
be known, and our plans for religious and scientific
agitation might be baffled by exposing them. Our
existence threatens no Government, feeds no
political cabal, attacks no pillar of social order.
We do not concern ourselves in the least with
affairs of State, nor lay impious hands upon the
conjugal, filial, or parental relation. We would
not admit man or woman who was in rebellion
against the existing laws or government of his or
her country, or engaged in plots and conspiracies
against the public peace and safety. In New York
we expelled one of our most active charter officers.

AND ITS ATMS. 57

an Englishman — one of the founders of the Society,
in fact — because he allowed himself to be mixed up
with a gang of French Communist refugees in their
wicked conspiracies. Judge for yourselves, there-
fore, how malicious and unfounded are the libels that
have been circulated in this country as to our being
political spies, and, most ridiculous of all, Russian
spies ! The only Russian in our party became a
citizen of the United States of America last July,
an act unprecedented among Russian women,
and her book, " Isis Unveiled," already referred
to, is not allowed to cross the frontiers. Nor
would we admit into our fellowship any one
who taught irreverence to parents or immorality
to husbands or wives. Nor have we any room
for the drunkard or the debauchee. If Theo-
sophy did not make men better, purer, wiser,
more useful to themselves and to society,
then this organisation of ours had better never
been born. That it lives, and Is respected
even by those who cannot sympathise with
its Ideas, is evidence of its beneficent character.
This answers one of the above questions, and
I have also shown you that our plan of work
is to employ existing agencies to create an
interest in Eastern philosophies and religions,
and make the Press our helper, even when
it fancies it is killing us off with its fine sarcasm or
abuse.

And now, we are asked, what attitude do we
hold to religious beliefs, and what do we believe as

58 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

to God and his government? The Society, I have
already told you, is no Propaganda, formed to dis-
seminate fixed dogmas ; therefore, as a society, it
has no creed to offer for the world's acceptance.
It recognises the great philosophical principle that
while there is but one Absolute Truth, the differ-
ences among men only mark their respective appre-
hensions of that Truth. It is not for me to say to
you what this Absolute Truth is. If I were cap-
able of doing so, then (for the first time since the
world began) there would have appeared an infal-
lible, omniscient human mind upon earth. There
is no educated sectarian so bigoted that when you
calmly discuss with him the bases of his faith, he
will not admit that its Founder was not equal to
his one Supreme God in omniscience and other
attributes. The Parsi will not claim it for Zoroas-
ter, the Buddhist for Sakya-Muni, the Jain for
Parasnatha, the Jew for Moses, the Mohammedan
for the Prophet of Islam, nor the Hindu for any of
the Rishis, who

"Above all fleshly, worldly feelings soared."

Revere his spiritual intermediator and teacher as
either of these may, he will only claim that, in his
opinion, more of this Absolute Truth flowed from
Heaven to Earth through this particular channel,
this minor god, if you will, than through any other.
And to settle these disputes, all the spilt blood of
religious wars has been shed. Then why should
we accord to these Christian missionaries who
have so maligned us to you, that which we refuse to

AND ITS AIMS.

59

other people ? Why should we, as a society, accept
Jesus rather than Vasishta, Gautama or Zoroaster?
Far be it from me to scoff at the simple faith of
those thousands of Christians who have pictured to
themselves a Deity all love and beneficence, and
who exemplify in their lives and conversation all
that is beautiful in human nature. The recollection
of my nearest and dearest ones, and of those others
whom I have known from boyhood up, in different
lands and various social conditions, would stop my
mouth were I so unjust and cruel. I myself come
from a line of ancestors who have left behind them
historical records of their unselfish and courageous
devotion to Christianity. Just as I have left my
home and business and friends, to come to India
to search after the Parabrahma of primitive religions,
so, in 1635, one of my ancestors left his home in
England, to seek in the savage wilderness of America
that freedom to worship the Jewish Jehovah which
he could not have in England under the Restoration.
But, as the author of "Isis" remarks, these people
would have been equally good in any other religious
sect ; they are better than their creed : goodness,
virtue, equity, are congenital with them.

But when we have shown in what we do not be-
lieve, we have to say what is our faith. We do be-
lieve in the immortality of the human spirit * — the
" we " meaning all the representative Theosophists
whose minds have been opened to me. In truth,
there is not much attraction in our Society for these
* The seventh principle in man— the Atma of the Hindus,

6o THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

who persistently deny this assumption, for what
advantage is there in studying all those primitive,
sublime utterances of the Vedas, the Zend Avesta,
the Tripitikas, about the " soul" and future life, if a
man is incapable of realizing the idea of a spiritual
self or an Universal Principle at all ? Let such an
one take his balances and weigh and count over
and christen the motes of Nature's dust-heap, and
get ribbons for catching a new bug, and titles for
impaling a new beetle. He will die happy in the
thought that his name, though Latinized or Hellen-
ized past recognition, will be transmitted to pos-
terity in connexion with the solar refrangibility of
the cucumber, or some other discovery of equally
momentous importance.

The study of occult science has a twofold value.
First, that of teaching us that there is a teeming
world of Force within this teeming visible world
of Phenomena ; and, second, in stimulating the
student to acquire, by self-discipline and education,
a knowledge of his psychic powers and the ability
to employ them. How appropriate is the term
' occult science," when applied to the careful ob-
servation of the phenomena of force, is apparent
when we read the confessions of scientific leaders
as to the limitation of their positive knowledge.
" We have not succeeded," says Professor Balfour
Stewart, " in solving the problem as to the nature
of life, but have only driven the difficulty into a
borderland of thick darkness, into which the light
of knowledge ( Western knowledge, he should say)

AND ITS AIMS. 6i

has not yet been able to penetrate."* Says Le
Conte, " Creation or destruction of matter, increase
or diminution of matter, lies beyond the domain of
science." f And even Huxley ,J the High Pontiff

regnant of materialism, confesses " it is also, in

strictness, true that we know nothing about the
.composition of any body whatever, as it is."

Did time permit, I might cite to you many
similar utterances from the mouths of the most
worshipped biologists and philosophers who happen
at the moment to have the stage of notoriety to
themselves. You cannot open a book on chemis-
try, physiology, or hygiene, without stumbling upon
admissions that there are fathomless abysses in all
modern science. Pere Felix, the great Catholic
orator of France, taunted the Academy by saying
that they found an abyss even in a grain of sand.
Who, then, can tell us of the nature of life, the
cause of its phenomena, the qualities of the inner
man? Who guards the keys of the secret chamber,
and where do they hang ? What dragons lie in
the path ? America cannot tell us, Europe cannot
— for we have questioned both. But in the Western
libraries we found old books which tell us that in
olden times there was a class of men, who had dis-

* '* The Conservation of Energy," by Balfour Stewart, LL.D.,
F.R. S., Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Owens' College,
Manchester (p. 163).

t "Correlation of Vital with Chemical and Physical Forces,"
revised for Dr. Stewart's book, stipra (see page 171).

X ••On the Physical Basis of Life." By Thomas H. Huxley,
LL.D., F.R.S.

62 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

covered these secrets, had interrogated nature be-
hind her veil. These men lived in the lands now
called Tibet, India, Persia, Chaldea, Egypt, and
Greece. We find traces of them even in the frae-
mentary remains of the sacred literature of Mexico
and Peru. And we have been told that this sacred
science is not extinct, but still survives, and is
practised by men who carefully guard their know-
ledge from profane hands. Some of us have even
had the inestimable good fortune to meet with such
wonder-workers and tosee their experiments. So we
have come in quest of the places and opportunity
to learn for our own benefit and that of humanity,
what occult law of nature can be brought out of Dr.
Stewart's "borderland of darkness " into the lighted
and odoriferous class-rooms of Western Science.

To what highest good do we aspire ? What is
the highest good, but to know something of man
and his powers, to discover the best means to
benefit humanity — physically, morally, spiritually ?
To this we aspire : can our interrogator conceive of
a nobler ambition ? In common with all thinkinsr
people we have, of course, our individual specula-
tions about that infinite and awful something which
Anglo-Saxons call God ; but, as a Society, we say,
with Pope —

" Know, then, thyself; presume not God to scan ;
The proper study of mankind is Man."

As to our ideas of the next world, the aid of
metaphysics would have to be invoked to answer
the question. Suffice it that we do not fancy the

AND ITS AIMS. 63

other world to be gross like this ; lighted by the
same solar vibrations, filled with such houses, such
Framji Cowasji Halls, as ours ! Most men are apt
to brutalize the next world in trying to construct
a tangible idea for the mind to rest upon. The
Heaven of Milton, which, as Professor Huxley ob-
serves, is the one believed in by Christians and not
at all that of any Biblical authority — is a place of
shining stairs, golden pavements, and bejewelled
thrones, on which, without an inch of cushion to
mitigate their metallic hardness, the redeemed saints
sit for ever and ever singing hymns to the accom-
paniment of the harp. So the Moslem Paradise
teems with physical delights, and even the "Summer
Land " of our Western Spiritualists has been
sketched, mapped out and described by all the re-
cent authorities, from Andrew Jackson Davis
downward.

Is it not enough to conceive of a future state of
existence corresponding with the new necessities
of the monad that has passed through and out of the
cycle of objective matter and become a subjective
entity? Can we not realise a life apart from the use of
pots and ladles, easy chairs and mosquito curtains?
Even the Jivan-Mukta, or soul emancipated, while
living in this world, loses all sense of relationship
to it and its grossness. How much more perfect
the contrast, then, between our narrow physical life
and the Mukiatma, or soul universalized — the soul
having sympathies with the Universal Good, True,
Ji:st, and being absorbed in Universal Love ! Let

64 7HE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

us not drown ourselves in oceans of vague meta-
physical speculation, in trying to drag the next
sphere down to this, but rather strive to elevate
our present plane of matter, so that one end of it
may climb to some sort of proximity to the higher
realm of spirit.

What an important question is this which heads
the second series that I read to you ! How can one
be helped to acquire mastery over his baser nature?
Mighty problem I — how change the brute into the
angel ? Why ask for the obvious answer to so
simple a question ? Does my friend imagine there
is more than one way in which it can be done ?
Can any other but one's own self effect this purifi-
cation, this splendid conquest, in comparison with
whose glory all the greatest victories of war sink
into contemptible insignificance? There must be,
first, the belief that this conquest is possible ; then,
knowledge of the method ; then, practice. Men
only passively animal, become brutal from ignor-
ance of the consequences of the first downward
step. So, too, they fail to become god-like because
of their ignorance of the potentiality of effort.
Certainly one can never improve himself who is
satisfied with his present circumstances. The re-
former is of necessity a discontented man — discon-
tented with w^hat pleases common souls ; striving
after something better. Self-reform exacts the
same temperament. A man who thinks w^ell of his
vices, his prejudices, his superstitions, his habits,
his physical, mental, moral state, is in no mood to

AND ITS AIMS. 65

begin to climb the high ladder that reaches from
the world of his littleness to a broader one. He
had better roll over in his mire, and dismiss Theo-
sophy with signs of impatience.

Great results are achieved by achieving little
ones in turn ; great armies may be beaten in detail
by an inferior force ; constant dripping of little
water-drops wears away the hardest rock. You
and I are so many aggregations of good and bad
qualities. If we wish to better our characters, in-
crease our capabilities, strengthen our will-power,
we must begin with small things and pass to greater
ones. Friend, do you want to control the hidden
forces of Nature and rule in her domain as a kin<7-
consort ? Then begin with the first pettiness, the
smallest flaw you can find in yourself, and remove
that. It may be a mean vanity, a jealousy of some
one's success, a strong predilection or a strong
antipathy for some one thing, person, caste ; or a
supercilious self-sufficiency that prevents your form-
ing a fair judgment of other men's countries, food,
dress, customs, or ideas ; or an inordinate fondness
for something you eat, drink, or amuse yourself
with. It matters not ; if it is a blemish, if it stands
in the way of your perfect and absolute enfran-
chisement from the rule of this sensuous world,
" pluck it out and cast it from thee." This done,
you may pass on.

You understand now, do you not, the meaning
of the various sections and degrees of our Theoso-
phical curriculum ? We welcome most heartily

£

66 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

across our threshold every man or woman, of ascer-
tained respectable character and professed sincerity
of purpose, who wishes to study the ancient philo-
sophies. They are on probation. If true The-
osophists at bottom, they will show it by deeds not
words. If not, they will soon go back to their
old friends and surroundings, apologizing for hav-
ino-even thouMit of doing different from themselves.
And as one who brings peace-offerings in his hand,
they will try to do some meanness to us, who only
took them at their word and thought them better
than they proved to be. I know this is true, for
we have had experience — even in India.

I must here clear up one point which some pro-
fess to be in doubt about after reading a certain
circular issued by our Society. That circular states
that for a Fellow to reach the highest degree of
our highest section, he must have become " freed
from all exacting obligations to country, society,
and family," he must adopt a life of strict chastity.
I have been asked whether no one could become a
thorough Theosophist without relinquishing the
marriage relation. Now our circular makes no
such assertion. A man may be a most zealous,
useful, and respected Fellow, and yet be a patriot,
a public official, and a husband. Our highest
section is composed of men who have retired from
active life to spend their remaining days in seclu-
sion, study, and spiritual perfection. You have
your married priests, and your sanyasis and yogis.
So we have our visible, active men, seen in the

AND ITS ATAIS. 67

world, mixed np In its concerns, and a part of it ;
and we have our unseen, but none the less active,
adepts — proficients in science, physical and occult
— masters of philosophy and metaphysics — who
benefit mankind without their hand being ever so
much as suspected. Though I am ostensibly Pre-
sident of the whole Theosophical Society, yet I am
less than the least of these Emancipated Ones,
and not yet worthy to enter this highest section.

It is evident from the foregoing that there is
room in our Society for all earnest, unbigoted
persons and groups of such persons now working
disunitedly. Divided, they are comparatively
powerless to do much ; united^ they would make a
strength to be felt by the reactionists. Remember
the Roman /^j'j'r^i', my friends, and put that emblem
up over the door of every temple. My own country,
the Great Republic of the West, has this motto :
E Pliiribus Unuin — one out of many, one country
out of many smaller States. Just so it might be
one National Samaj of Aryavarta, out of a shoal of
local societies. That is the plan of our Theosophi-
cal Society; we have various branches, but one cen-
tral guiding authority, and surely there are no
greater differences between you here than there
are between the red, brown, black, yellow and
white men who call themselves Theosophists, the
w^orld over.

The relations of a man to his country and his
caste are, it appears to me, quite distinct from
his relations to the study of natural law, of philology,

68 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

of philosophy, and of esoteric science. Your brown
faces and Oriental costumes show me, even without
the fact that this audience understands the language
I speak, the authors I cite, and the thoughts I
utter, that education has no caste, colour, creed, or
nativity. Why, then, ask if one must adopt a
certain dress or put himself in a certain chair, or
before a certain dish of food, to study your fore-
fathers' philosophy ? Here am I, with a white skin,
an European dress, and a life-experience coloured
and shaped after the notions of the section, society,
and class in which my parents brought me up.
When I began to ponder over this magnificent
Eastern philosophy, I was not told that I must
dress in this way or that, or refrain from doing this,
that or the other thing, not vitally injurious, — such as
the drinking of liquors and indulgence in sensuality.
I w^as simply shown the path, my way was pointed
out, and I was left to my own choice. Well, like all
men of the world, I had certain' bad habits, bad
ways of thinking, foolish ways of living. I put an
inordinate value upon things really worthless,
and undervalued things really important. I was
looking at things through bad spectacles. After a
while, I discovered this myself, and, as I was in
dead earnest and determined to succeed or die in
the attempt, I began to reform myself I had been
a moderate drinker of wines after the Western
fashion ; I gave them up. I had been a frequenter
of clubs, theatres, social parties, race-courses, and
other places, wherein men of the world vainly seek

AND ITS AIMS. 69

contentment and pleasure. I gave them all up ;
not grudgingly, not looking back at them with
regret, but as one flings from him some worthless
plaything when its worthlessness becomes known
to him. You will, perhaps, pardon the employment
of my personal experience as the illustration of the
moment, in view of the fact that it is the only one
which, without breach of confidence, I can use to
answer the interrogatory that has been put to me.

If India is to be regenerated, it must be by
Hindus, who can rise above their castes and every
other reactionary influence, and give good example
as well as good advice. Useless to gather into
Samajes, and talk prettily of reform, and print
translations and commentaries, if the Samajists are
to relapse into customs they abhor in their hearts,
and observe ceremonies that to them are but super-
stitions, and throw all their enlightenment to the
dogs. Useless for native gentlemen to sit at the
tables of Europeans, in apparent cordial equality,
if they have not the moral courage to break bread
with them in their own houses. Not of such stuff
are the saviours of nations made.

But we will pass on to the next question. No
time can be specified for the progress of a Thco-
sophist from one stage to another. Some would take
years, where others would only require days, to reach
a given result. We are asked if any library will be
established by us ? I hope and trust so. A nucleus
already exists; which of you will help to build it up?
What rich native loves his countr)ancn more than

70 THE THEOSOPFIICAL SOCIETY

money? Or is it 3'our notion that the Indians
should do nothing, and the strangers all ? We are
willing to give even our lives, if need be, to this
cause ; what more will any of you give ?

Yes, there will be social gatherings to discuss our
congenial themes. In point of fact, there are such
already, for every Wednesday and Sunday evening,
since our arrival at Bombay, we have held a sort of
dttrbar^ or reception, at our bungalow. There we
shall be happy to see all — even spies — who care to
see us, and those who live out of the city can always
communicate with us by letter. Being people who
try to take a practical view of things, and dis-
posed to work rather than talk, we have set our
minds to accomplish two things. We want to per-
suade the most learned native scholars — such men,
for instance, as the distinguished Sanskrit Professor
of Elphinstone College, who occupies the chair of
this meeting, and the equally distinguished Presi-
dent of the Pali and Sanskrit College of Ceylon,
and the eminent Parsi scholar, Mr. Cama, who also
honours us with his presence — to translate into
English the most valuable portions of their respec-
tive religious and scientific literatures, so that we
may help to circulate them in Western countries.
At the same time we wish to aid, as best we can,
in the extension of non-sectarian education for
native girls and married women, which we regard
as the corner-stone of national greatness, and in the
introduction of cheap and simple machines that can
be worked by hand labour and that will increase

AND ITS AIMS. 71

the comfort and prosperity of our adopted country.
We have chosen this land for our home, and feel a
desire to help it and its people in any way practic-
able, however humble, without meddling with
its politics, into which, as American citizens,
we have, as I have remarked, neither the right nor
inclination to intrude.

Let me, before leaving this part of our subject,
make one point very clear. The Theosophical
Society is no money-making body, nor has it any-
thing to do, as such, with financial affairs. Its field
is religion, philosophy, and science, — not politics or
trade. No one connected with its management
receives a penny for his services.

And now, having answered, seriatim, the ques-
tions embraced in the list, I will pass on to some
obvious deductions that suggest themselves, and
then conclude.

The Indian press have remarked it as a \(tcY
strange thing that Western people should have
come here to learn instead of to' teach — as though
there were nothing in India worth the learning.
This conveys a sad impression to my mind. It
makes me realize how completely modern India
ignores the achievements of ancient Aryavarta.
It shows how complete is the eclipse of Aryan
vv^isdom when people from the other side of the globe
could know more of the essence of Vedic philosophy
than most of the direct descendants of the Rishis
themselves. Since we landed on your shores we
have met hundreds of educated Hindus, Parsis,

72 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

and men of other sects. They have thronged our
parlours, filled our compound, and gathered about
us day after day. Out of all these we have found
few — so few that we might almost reckon them
upon the fingers — who really know what Aryan,
Zend, Jain, and Buddhistic philosophies teach.
There have been scores able to recite slokas, and
whole puranas and chapters, with accurate accent
and rhythm; but they merely repeated words without
understanding : they had not the key to the
mysteries. I have met those who had seen the
marvellous phenomena performed by ascetics, and
amply corroborated all the stories we had heard
and circulated through the Western press. But
scarcely one who, having known and seen such
thinQs, had set himself to work with determination
to learn the science and explore the adytum of
nature. In this throng of visitors there was no end
of students of Mill, of Darwin, of Spencer, of
Huxley, Tyndall, Bain, Schlegel, Renan, Burnouf.
Their minds were, 'in some instances, whole arsenals
of propositions in logic, metaphysics, mathematics,
and sophistry — all the weapons which reason uses
against intuition. They could out-wrangle a Cam-
bridge double-first, and

*' make the worse appear the better reason."

They had persuaded themselves into error against
their own inner consciousness. We have noted,
and I repeat it, that a larger cluster of acute in-
tellects we never encountered than this of Bombay.
Part had become thorough materialists. To them,

AND ITS AIMS, 73

as to Balfour Stewart, the Universe seemed "a vast

physical machine composed of atoms, with

some sort of medium between them as the machine."
The apprehension of any sort of a God had died
out, the feeling of having in them a soul had been
smothered. With polite incredulity they have
listened to our tales of phenomena witnessed by
us, similar to those described in the biography of
Sankara Acharya and Sakya Muni, sometimes
unable to repress a smile. They seemed to come
to us more to observe the lengths and depths to
which Western credulity can go, than to gather
corroboration of the narratives contained in their
own sacred literature. And, I am sorry to say,
some few, when out of earshot, have made them-
selves merry over our testimony to the truth of the
primitive philosophies.

Another class we have met, with minds full of
misty speculations which prevented their having
any clear and defined views of either of the great
questions of universal human interest. Drawn
hither by the reveries of Swedenborg and Davis, or
thither by those of Boehmen and St. Martin, they
had found no sure ground upon which to plant
their feet.

To us strangers, this has been a most instructive
study, and we have tried to discover the best means
to combine all this intellectual vis^our, this learning-,
this mental agitation, upon one objective point.
We see in this state of things the promise of future
good results. Here is material for a new school of

74 THE THEOSOPHICAL ."SOCIETY

Aryan philosophy which only waits the moulding
hand of a master. We cannot yet hear his ap-
proaching footsteps, but he will come ; as the man
always does come when the hour of destiny strikes.
He will come, not as a disturber of the peace, but
as the expounder of principles, the instructor in
philosophy. He will encourage study, not inflame
passion. He will scatter blessings, not sorrow. So
Zoroaster came, so Goutama, so Confucius. O for
a Hindu great enough in soul, wise enough in
mind, sublime enough in courage, to prepare the
way for the coming of this needed Regenerator ! O
for one Indian of so grand a mould that his appeals
to his countrymen would fire every heart with a
noble emulation to revive the glories of that by-
gone time, when India poured out her people into
the empty lap of the West, and gave the arts and
sciences, and even language itself, to the outside
world ! Are her sons all sunken in selfishness and
the soft ooze of little things? Has their scramble
for meagre patronage deadened the noble pride of
race, and replaced it with an obsequious humility
tinged with unreasonable hate ? Can they not for-
give their fellow-countrymen for wearing a different
style of turban and having a different line of an-
cestors? Is the love of caste so passionate and
deep as to make an object of righteous hatred
every one not in their own social circle ? Ah,
young men of promise, beloved brothers and com-
panions, objects of our solicitude and hopes, to see
and dwell among whom wc have crossed three

AND ITS AIMS. 75

oceans and threaded two seas, be Indians /"/'j-^, and
caste men afterwards if you will. Is there not one
of you to send the electric spark through this inert
mass and make it quiver with emotion ? Here lies
a mighty nation, like a giant benumbed with sloth,
and no one to arouse its potential energies. Here
lavish Nature has provided exhaustless resources,
that combined talent and applied knowledge would
turn into fabulous national wealth. Here rich
mines, a fat soil, navigable waters, forests of valu-
able timber, a multiplicity of natural products that
might be manufactured at home into portable and
profitable articles of commerce. All that is lacking
is a share of that energy and foresight which, in
two centuries and a half, have transformed the
United States from a howling wilderness into a
scene of busy prosperity. In vain the efforts of
statesmanship to spread the blessings of education
and promote the industrial arts, if they are not
seconded by the patriotic endeavours of enlightened
Young India. Are these great Colleges and
Universities founded for the sole purpose of turn-
ing out placemen and dreamers? Have schools
been opened only to help to hatch debating societies
and metaphysical training-clubs, where minds that
should be directing great economical enterprises
are engaged in splitting hairs, and voting whether
-love is an essence and man a molecule ? I have
observed with deep regret that there is among the
youth of Bombay an eager desire for the empty
honours of University degrees, and no disposition

76 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

to fit themselves for the management of practical
affairs. There are far too many native barristers
and doctors, and far too few qualified superinten-
dents of mills and manufactories, geologists, metal-
lurgists and engineers. There are LL.B.'s in
plenty, but of educated carpenters, millers, sugar-
makers, and paper-manufacturers, none, or next to
none. The great and crying want of modern India
to-day is a scientific school attached to every
College, such as we have in America, and in each
great centre of population a school of Technology,
with appropriate machinery, where the most im-
proved methods of the principal handicrafts could
be taught to intelligent lads.

Do not imagine that I have the idle notion that
India can be reformed in a day. This once enlight-
ened, monotheistic and active people have de-
scended, step by step, in the course of many cen-
turies, from the level of Aryan activity to that of
idolatrous lethargy and fatalism. It will be the
work not of years but of generations to re-ascend
the steps of national greatness. But there must be
a beginning. Those sons of Hindustan who are
disposed to act rather than preach cannot commence
a day too soon. This /loiir the country needs your
help. Leave your molecules to themselves ; put
away for a time your speculations upon the descent
of species, cease vain endeavours to count the
number of times an atom may be split in halves,
and go to work in earnest to help yourselves and
your Motherland. The atoms in space will evolve

Ah'D ITS ALMS. 77

new worlds without you ; your cotuitry is growing
weaker and poorer every day, and wants you.

But you lack capital, you say. Then unite into
clubs and committees to find out where capital can
be profitably employed, and spread the facts before
the Western nations. In London alone there is
lying, in bank vaults, idle capital enough to
set every possible Indian industry on its feet.
Those acute and daring English merchants and
capitalists ransack the world in search of oppor-
tunities to earn interest on their surplus incomes.
Turkish bonds, Peruvian railways, Egyptian consols,
Bohemian glassworks, American schemes, are all
tried in this hope of profit. What does Europe or
America know — really know — of Indian resources,
trade, customs, business opportunities ? A mere
handful of bankers and traders have only such facts
as lie upon the surface of this unworked national
mine. A few military officers and civil servants
may have published the records of their casual ob-
servations. But, in comparison with what ought to
be known, and might be made known under a proper
system of general and sub-committees, this is as a
mere drop in the bucket. As to my own country,
which would gladly exchange commodities with
India as with any other nation, I can speak by the
book. For my people, this land is but a geogra-
phical abstraction, whose capes, rivers, and chief cities
are known by name to the schoolboy, and straight-
way forgotten, for lack of subsequent reminders.
And yet I hear my native brothers complain of

78 THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

poverty. I hear of thousands of stahvart labourers
dying of hunger for want of employment at three
pice per day. I see Indian gums, fibres, seeds and
grains, going abroad in the raw state, and coming
back manufactured, to be sold to natives at large
profit. I see men, as well-educated, as strong-minded,
as capable to succeed in independent business, as any
young men in New York, or London, or Berlin, de-
meaning themselves to throng the ante-rooms of
public officials in search of employment, and ready
to fall upon each other's faces for the sake of miser-
able little clerkships. This is what we behold, at
even a first glance, in the country of our adoption.

I will make no apology for my plain speech, for
I come from a practical country, where we have learnt
that smooth speeches and culture and true friendship
do not always go together. There is too much talk
here and too little enterprise; too much suavity and
not enough available perseverance. There is unmea-
sured ability to suffer and endure, but not the master
spirit which laughs at trouble, and rushes to meet
adversity with the joy of the athlete who hails the
coming of his adversary as the opportunity, long
sought, to show his prowess.

Cast your eye over the Western world and see
what an intense activity pervades the whole scene.
Let the picture unroll like a great panorama before
you. Behold the struggles of all those nations not
only to extend commerce, but also to settle the
weightier problem of religious truth. See Christi-
anity in America broken up into innumerable sects,

AND ITS AIMS. 79

and Science leading the public far away from the
Church into the dry pastures of Materialism and
Nihilism. See the clergy being stripped of the
last shreds of their influence and the free secular
press attaining predominant sway. Look at Great
Britain agitating the question of disestablishment,
the Catholics emancipated from the incubus of the
Irish National Church, and Bradlaugh preaching
bold atheism in London, Sunday after Sunday. In
France, behold the revolution in politics that has
passed the reins of power Into Republican hands,
and flung out the Jesuits from their cosy nest behind
MacMahon's chair. In Germany, open rupture w^Ith
the Pope, and the abolishment of Ecclesiastical privi-
leges. In Russia, the red spectre of the Nihilist
Party, menacing both Church and State. Every-
where, as it were, the boiling and seething of a vast
cauldron — the conflict between Theology and
Science.

This conflict, so eloquently described by Professor
John William Draper, began with the discovery of
the printer's art, and its progress has been marked
by a thousand victories for science. Born out of
the womb of the Reformation, she has proved the
benefactress of humanity by facilitating interna-
tional intercourse, developing national resources,
surrounding mankind with a multitude of comforts
and refinements, and bringing education within the
reach of the humblest labourer. Like other great
Oriental countries, India has not hitherto availed
itself of these material advantages. The fault

So THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

does not lie with the masses, for they know
nothing of all that has been going on in
the busy world. It lies at the door of the edu-
cated class I have heretofore described. And yon
are the very men ! Yon have run through the cur-
ricula of science and literature, and made no practical
application of your acquired knowledge. The sen-
tries of this sleeping nation neglect their duty.

But as the unrestful ocean has its flux and reflux,
so all throughout Nature the law of periodicity as-
serts itself Nations come and go, slumber and re-
awaken. Inactivity is of necessity limited. The
soul of Aryavarta keeps vigil within the dormant
body. Again will her splendour shine. Her
prosperity will be restored. Her primitive philo-
sophy will once more be interpreted, and it will teach
both religion and science to an eager world. Her
ancient literature, though now hidden away from the
quest of an unsympathetic West, is not buried be-
yond revival. The hoof of Time, which has stamped
into dust the vestiges of many a nation, has not
obliterated those treasures of human thought and
human inspiration. The youth of India will shake
off their sloth, and be worthy of their sires. From
every ruined temple, from every sculptured corri-
dor cut in the heart of the mountains, from every
secret viJiara where the custodians of the Sacred
Science keep alive the torch of primitive wisdom,
comes a whispering voice which says : "Children,
your Mother is not dead, but only sleepeth ! "

THE COMMON FOUNDATION OF
ALL RELIGIONS.*

Religion, according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, is
" a great (I should say the greatest) reahty and a
great truth— nothing less than an essential and
indestructible element of human nature." He
holds that the religious institutions of the world
represent a genuine and universal feeling in the
race, just as really as any other institutions. The
accessory superstitions which have overgrown and
perverted the religious sentiment must not be con-
founded with the religious sentiment itself. That
this should be done is a mischievous mistake, alike of
religionists and anti-religionists. Science, in clear-
ing away these excrescences, brings us always
nearer the underlying truth, and is therefore the
handmaid and friend of true religion. The sub-
stratum of truth is the one broad plateau of rock
upon which the world's theological superstructures
are reared. It is — as the title of our lecture puts
it — " the common foundation of all religions."
And now what is it ? What is this rock ? It is

* A Lecture delivered at the Patchiappah's Hall, Madras,

26th April, 1882.
F

82 THE COMMON FOUNDATION-

AL conglomerate, having more than one element In its
composition. In the first place, of necessity, there is
the idea of a part of man's nature which is non-
physical; next, the idea of a post-mortem continua-
tion of this non-physical part; third, that of the ex-
istence of an Infinite Principle underlying all phe-
nomena; fourth, a certain relationship between this
Infinite Principle and the Individual man.

The evolution of the grander from the lower
Intellectual conception in this graded sequence is
now conceded, alike by the scientist and the theo-
logian. This evolution is accompanied by an
elimination ; for in religion, as In all other depart-
ments of thought, the light cannot be seen until the
clouds are cleared away. Primitive truth is the
light, theologies are the clouds; and they are clouds
still, though they glitter with all the hues of the
spectrum. Fetish worship, animal worship, hero
worship, ancestor worship, nature worship, book
worship ; polytheism, monotheism, theism, deism,
atheism, materialism (which includes positivism),
agnosticism ; the blind adoration of the Idol, the
blind adoration of the crucible — these are the
alpha and omega of human religious thought, the
measure of relative spiritual blindness.

All these conceptions have passed through a
distorting prism — the human mind ; and that Is why
they are so Imperfect, so incongruous, so human. A
man can never see the whole light by looking from
inside his body outward, any more than one can
see the clear daylight through a dust-soiled window-

OF ALL RELLGLONS. S3

glass, or the stars through a smeared reflecting lens.
Why? Because the physical senses are adapted only
to the things of a physical world, and religion is a
transcendentalism. Religious truth is not a thing
for physical observation, but one for psychical
intuition. One who has not developed this
psychical power can never kno7.v religion as a
fact ; he can only accept it as a creed, or paint it
to himself as an emotional sentimentality. Bigotry
is the brand to put upon one; Dilettantism that for
the other. Behind both, and equally challenging
both, stands Scepticism.

Man's religion, like himself, has its ages. First,
proclamation, propagandism, martyrdom ; second,
conquest, faith ; tJiird, neglect, stagnation ; fourth,
decadence, tenacious formalism ; fifth, hypocrisy ;
sixtJi, compromise ; seventh, decay and extinction.
And, like the human race, no religion passes as a
whole through these stages seriatim. At this very
day, we see the Australian sunk in the depths of
animalism, the American Red Indian just emerging
from the Stone Age, the European in the full flush
of high material civilization. And so, a glance at
religious history shows us the cropping up of highly
heretical schools and sects in every great religion, of
which each represents some special departure from
primitive orthodoxy, some separate advance along
the road towards the final p:oal that we have
sketched out. And I also note, as the physician
observes the symptoms of his patient, that history
constantly affords, in the bitter mutual hatreds of

84 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

thcse-cliques and sects for each other, the clearest
proof that our conckision is correct, when we say — as
we said just now — that Rehgion can never be really
known by the physical brain of the physical man.
All these hatreds, bitternesses, and cruel reprisals of
sect for sect, and world's faith for world's faith,
show that men mistake non-essentials for essen-
tials, illusions for realities.

We can test this statement very easily. Look
away from this war of theologians to the class of
men who have developed their psychical powers, and
what do you see ? In place of strife, peace, agree-
ment, mutual tolerance, brotherly concord as to
the fundamentals of religion. Whatever their
exoteric creed, they are greater than and far above
it, and their innate holiness and gentleness of
nature give life and strength to the church they
represent; they are the flowers of the human tree,
the brothers of all mankind ; for they know what
is the lid^t that shines behind the clouds ; under the
foundations of all the churches they sec the same
rock. I ask those of you who wish to be con-
\ inced of this fact to read the Dabistan, or School of
Manners, by Mohsan Fani, who records in it his ob-
servations of the sadhus of twelve different religions,
two centuries ago. "Granting all the premises," the
modern sceptic will say, "can you prove to me
that science has not swept away all your religious
hypotheses along with the myths, legends, super-
stitions, and other lumber ?" Well, I answer, " yes."
It is exactly on that datum line that the Theoso-

OF ALL RRLLGLONS. 85

phical Society Is building Itself up. Some people
think us opponents of science, but, on the contrary,
we are its warmest advocates — until it begins to
dogmatize from incomplete known data upon new
facts. When it reaches that point we challenge it
and oppose it with all our strength, such as It may be,
just as we fight the dogmatism of theology. For,
to our mind, it matters not whether you blindly
worship a fetish, a man, a book, or a crucible, — It is
blind idolatry all the same ; and science can be,
and has been, as cruel and remorseless in her way
as the Church ever was in hers.

The first step Is to have an agreement as to what
the word " science " means. I take it to be the
collection and arrangement of observed facts about
Nature. If that is correct, then I protest against
half measures ; I want those observations to be
complete, to cover all Nature, not the half of it.
What sort of an ontology would that be which, while
pretending to Investigate the laws of our being,
took note only of our anatomy, physiology, and
whatever relates to the physical frame of man,
leaving out all that concerns his mental function ?
Absurd ! you would say ; but I ask you whether it
is any more absurd to study man In his body with-
out the mind, than to study him In body and mind
while ignoring the trans-corporeal manifestations
of his middle nature ? You want me to define what
I mean by this " middle nature " and by its " trans-
cor.poreal manifestations." I will do so. I start,
then, with the proposition that there is more of a

86 TFIE COMMON FOUNDATION

man than can be burnt with fire, eaten by tigers,
drowned by water, chopped to pieces with knives,
or rotted in the ground. The materiahst will deny
this, but it matters not ; the proposition can be
proved as easily as that he is a man. They have
in Europe a science which they call psychology —
a misnomer ; for it is another kind of ology ; — but we
will not quarrel about words. Well, when you come
to analyse the Western idea that underlies this
term of psychology, you will discover that it
relates only to the normal and abnormal intellectual
manifestations of the brain. One class of scientists
— especially among the alienists, or students of
insanity — maintain that mind is a function of the
grey vesicles of the lobes of the brain ; injure the
brain by any one of a dozen accidents, and sensation
is cut off, thought ceases, mind is destroyed, the
thinking, hence responsible, entity is extinguished.
All that is left is carrion, and out of this carrion,
before the accident, sprang by magneto-electric
energy that which distinguishes man from the lowest
animal, as the lotos springs from slimy mud. The
opposed party affirm that the brain is the organ of the
mind, the machine of its manifestation, and that the
thinking something in man thinks still, and still ex-
ists, even though the brain be shattered, even though
the man die. The one reflects the tone of material-
ist science, the other the tone of the Christian
Churches and of the two crores * of so-called modern
spiritualists. The materialists regard man as an

* An Indian numeral—ten millions.

OF ALL RELIGIONS. 87

unity, a thinking machine ; the others regard him
as a duahty, a compound of body and soul. There
is no ground for a " middle nature " in either of
these schools. True, here and there, you will find
some casual allusion to a third and higher principle
— the "spirit," — as, for instance, in the Christian
New Testament (i Thessalonians, v. 23), where
Paul says, " I pray God your whole spirit and soul
and body be preserved blameless unto the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ," — an expression which,
however sound as theology, is extremely loose and
heterodox as science. But the whole drift of
Christian teaching, and of teaching through or by
mediums, favours the duality theory; the body dead,
second principle enters on a new career of its own,
until it attains to a postulated sjunmiun bonitin or
sumnimn maluni state. Now, experienced observers
of the phenomena of mediums have seen many
animated figures, or more or less substantial
apparitions of deceased persons, and these they
regard as returning souls revisiting the land of
the living. They have no idea of this middle
nature. But the Hindu philosophers make a far
deeper analysis of man. Instead of a single part,
or a duality, they affirm that there are no fewer
than seven well-defined principles or groups which
go to make up a human being. These are : —

(i.) The Material body — Sthulasarira ;

(2.) The Life Principle — Jiva ;

(3.) The Astral body — Lingasarira ;

8S THE COMMON FOUNDATION

(4.) The Kaviantpa (will, desire), resulting as
the " Double " — Alayavintpa ;

(5.) The Physical Intelligence (or Animal Soul)
— Manas ;

(6.) The Spiritual Intelligence — Biiddhi ;

(7.) The Divine Spirit — Atnia.

And so minute is their analysis, each of these prin-
ciples Is subdivided into seven sub-groups. Generall}^
speaking, the first, fourth, and seventh principles
mark the boundaries of the tripartite or trinitarian
man. And the fourth, which just comes mid-way be-
tween the gross body {Sthuiasanra) and t\\(iAt7na,o\-
divine and eternal principle, Is this middle nature
of which we have been In search. Now the next ques-
tion to be asked us is whetherthis fourth principle, re-
sulting as JMayavirupa^ or the human " double," Is
Intelligent or non-intelligent, matter orspirit; and the
next, whether Its existence can be scientifically ac-
counted for and proved. We will take them in order.
In itself the living man's double is either a vapour, a
mist, or a solid form, according to Its relative state
of condensation. Given outside the body one set of
atmospheric, electric, magnetic, telluric, and other
conditions, this form may be invisible, yet capable
of making sounds, or manifesting other signs
of its presence ; given another set of conditions,
It may be visible, but as a misty vapour ; given
a third set, it may be condensed into per-
fect visibility, and even tangibility. Volumes
upon volumes might be filled with bare para-

OF ALL RELIGIONS. ■ 89

graph extracts of recorded instances of these
apparitional visits. Sometimes the form manifests
inteUigence, it speaks ; sometimes it can only show
itself. I am now speaking of the apparitions of
dead persons. I have myself seen more than
five hundred such apparitions in America, where
hundreds more saw them, and have recorded my ex-
periences in the form of a book, which was gener-
ously praised by some of the scientists of Europe as a
careful record of scientifically accurate observations.*
I only mention it to satisfy you that this is no
question of hallucination or unsupported statements.
Well, then, we have here the middle nature of man
acting outside of and after the death of the plwsical
body ; though for my part — being a believer in
Asiatic psychology — I do not believe that these
post~inortein apparitions are the very man himself
— the thinking, responsible Ego. They are, I con-
ceive, but the vapoury image of the deceased —
matter energized by a residuum of the vital force
which is still entangled in the lingering molecules.
Some call them " elementaries ; " others, " shells."
They are the undispersed phantasms of the dead,
the apparitional forms of human beings in transit
between the states of full objectivity and full sub-
jectivity— 2>., between life in this world and life
in " Devachan." But to prove our proposition
we must first show that this middle principle,
this Mayavintpa or double, can be separated
from the living body at will, projected to a
"* " People from the Olhev World." New York, 1S75.

90 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

distance, and animated by the full consciousness
of the man. We have two means of proving
this — (i) in the concurrent testimony of eye-wit-
nesses as recorded in the Hterature of different
races ; and (2) in the evidence of Hving witnesses.
In the Hindu rehgious and philosophical works
there are many such testimonies. Not to men-
tion others, we may cite the famous case of
Sankaracharya, who entranced his body, left it in
the custody of his disciples, entered the body of a
Rajah just deceased, and lived in it for a number
of weeks ; and that of Agastya, who appeared in
the heat of the battle between Rama and Ravana,
while his body was entranced in the Neilgherries.
This story is given in the Raviayana. In Patan-
jali's Yoga Sutras this phenomenon is affirmed to
be within the power of every Siddha who perfects
himself in Yoga. As to living witnesses, I am one
myself, for I have seen the doubles of several men
acting intelligently at great distances from their
bodies, and in this pamphlet that I hold in my hand,"^
will be found the certificates of no less than nine
reputable persons — five Hindus and four Euro-
peans— that they have seen such appearances, on
various occasions, within the past two years. And
then we have scores of similar attestations from
credible persons living in different parts of the
world, which are to be read in many European
books treating upon these subjects. I do not pre-
tend to say that a sceptical public can be expecte

* " Hints on Esoteric Theosophy." By a Member of the Theoso
phical Society.

d

V

OF ALL RELIGIONS. 91

to take this mass of evidence, conclusive as It ma}/
be, without reserve ; the alleged phenomenon so
surpasses ordinary human experience that to believe
its reality each one must see for himself I, how-
ever, do affirm that we have here 2. prima facia case
of probable verity made out ; for, under the strictest
canons of scientific orthodoxy, we cannot suspect
a conspiracy to exist among so many individual
witnesses, who never saw or heard of each other,
who, in fact, did not even live In the same generation,
but whose testimonies are yet mutually corrobora-
tive.

But if we have a case of probable truth, the man
of science will ask us what we next demand of him.
Do we allege a natural and scientific, or a super-
natural, hence unscientific, explanation for the pro-
jection of the double of the living, and the appari-
tion of that of the deceased man ? I answer, most
assuredly, the former. I am devotee enough of
science to deny, with all the emphasis I can give
to words, the fact that a miraculous phenomenon
ever took place, in this or any age. Whatever
has occurred must have taken place within the
operation of natural law. To suppose otherwise
would be equivalent to saying that there is no
permanency in the laws of the universe, that
they can be set aside and played with at the caprice
of an irresponsible and meddlesome Power. We
should be in a universe going by jerks, started and
stopped like a clock that a child is playing with
This supernaturalism is the curse of all creeds, it

92 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

hangs like an Incubus around the neck of the re-
ligious, and hatches the satire of the sceptic : it is
the dry-rot that eats out the heart of any faith that
builds upon it. This it is which, carried in the
body of a church, foredooms it to ultimate destruc-
tion, as surely as the hidden cancer carried in the
human system will one day kill it. And of all
epochs this nineteenth century is the worst in which
to come before the public as the champions of super-
natural religions. They are going down in every
land, melting before the laboratory fires like waxen
images. No, when I stand forth as the defender
of Hinduism, Buddhism or Zoroastrianism, I wish
it to be understood that I do not claim any respect
or tolerance for them outside the limits of natural
law. I believe — nay I kiiozu — that their foundation
is a scientific one, and on those conditions they
inust stand or fall, so far as I am concerned. I do
not say they are in equally close reconciliation with
science, but I do say that whatever foundation they
have, whether broad or narrow, long or short, is
and must be a scientific one. And so, too, when I
ask you to cease from making yourselves ridiculous
by denying the existence of this middle nature in
man, it is because I am persuaded, as the result of
much reading and a good deal of personal experi-
ence, that the double, or Mayavirupa, is a scientific
fact.

Well, then, to return — is it matter or something-
else ? I say familiar matter plus something else.
And here stop a moment to think what matter is.

OF ALL RELLGIONS. 93

Loose thinkers — among whom we must class raw
lads fresh from college, with whatever number of
degrees — are too apt to associate the idea of matter
with the properties of density, visibility, and tangi-
bility. But this is very inexcusable. The air we
breathe is invisible, yet matter, — its equivalents of
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbonic acid
are each atomic, ponderable, demonstrable, by
analysis. Electricity cannot, except under prepared
conditions, be seen ; yet it is matter. The universal
ether of science no one ever saw ; yet it is matter
in a state of extreme tenuity. Take the familiar
example of forms of water, and see how they
rapidly run up the scale of tenuity until they elude
the clutch of science : stone-hard ice, melted ice,
condensed steam, superheated and invisible steam,
electricity, and — it is gone out of the world of effects
into the ^vorld of causes !

Well, then, with this warning before you, my
cerebrally superheated young friend of Madras
University, pray do not contradict me when I say
that the Hindu philosophy of man fits in with the
lines of modern science much more snugly than that
of either the supernaturalism of the Christian or the
materialism of the man of science. As we have seen
the successive forms of water running up into the in-
visible world, so, here, esoteric Hindu philosophy
gives us a graduated series of molecular arrange-
ments in the human economy, at one end of which
is the concrete mass of the Sthulasarira^ at the
other that last sublimation called Atnid^ or spirit.

94 TFIE COMMON FOUNDATION

" But how can all these exist together in one com-
bination ? is a man like a nest of boxes or baskets
fitted into each other, or do you mean to advance
the scientific absurdity that two things can simulta-
neously occupy the same space ? " This is a side
question provoked by the main one, but we must
dispose of it first I will say, then, that, as the
thing has been explained to me, each of these
several sets of atoms which compose the seven
parts of man, occupy the interstitial spaces between
the next coarser set of atoms. The more ethereal
elements in man are focalized as to their several
energies in what the Hindus call the Shadachak-
rams, or the six centres of vital force, crowned
by Sahasralam, in which is located the higher
consciousness. This supreme point is in the crown
of the head : the others are located at the spleen,
the umbilicus, the heart, the root of the throat,
and the centre of the frontal sinus. The atoms
of the BiiddJii would then pervade the interstices
of the lianas ; those of the Manas those of the
Kaviarupa ; those of the latter those of ^\^ Jiva ;
and those of the Jiva hose of the StJnilasarira
And, as each coarser principle contains the particles
of all the finer principles therefore the StJiulasarira
may be called the gross casket within which the
several parts of the composite man are contained.
Pervading and energizing all is the Atma, or that
incomprehensible final energy which cannot be
comprehended by the physical senses, and which is
described to himself by the Brahman, in the Man-

OF ALL RELIGIONS.

95

diikyo Upanishad hy saying: ''Thou art not this,
nor that, nor the third, nor anything- which the
mind can grasp with the help of the physical per-
ceptions." Your popular Telugu poet beautifully
and allegorically depicts this idea, in his poem
Sitardmd anjaniyani (Cosmic Matter), where Sita
— who is herself the personification of Prakriti — is
asked by the daughters and wives of the Rishis to
point out her husband, but, through modesty, re-
frains. The ladies then, pointing successively to a
number of different men, ask each time, " Is this
thy husband ? " She answers in the negative, but
when they point to Rama she is silent, for she can-
not even speak of her heart's lord before strangers.
So, the poet would have us understand, while we
may freely say what Atma is not, when we are re-
quired to say what it is we must be silent, for
words are powerless to express the sublime idea.

We have now prepared the ground to answer
both of the questions put by our imaginary critic.
The Mayavirupa, when intelligently projected be-
yond the physical body by the developed energy
of an initiate of Occult Science, contains in it all
his Manas and Buddhi (including the Chittam and
Ahankaram—SQnsQ of individuality), i.e., his Physi-
cal Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence. The In-
itiate quits his earthly casket (in which are left the
Jiva and Lingasarira), and for the moment lives,
thinks and acts in this Double of himself Its atomic
condition being less dense than that of the corporeal
body, it has enhanced powers of locomotion and per-

96 THE COMMON FOUND A 'HON

ception. Barriers that would stop the body — for ex-
ample, the walls of a room — cannot stop it, for its
particles may pass through the interstices of the
vibrating gross matter composing the wall. It is in
the subjective world, and may traverse space like
thought, which is itself a form of energy. Or,
if he likes, the Initiate may simply project a non-
intelligent image of himself and make it appear
at the spot at which he may have focalized his
thought''' It depends upon him whether the image
shall be but an illusionary form, or his own self ; it
may be mere matter, or matter plus himself As
to our accounting for the middle nature of man
scientifically, I have already shown that we may do
this by the collection of testimonies, and by per-
sonal observation. We may add that further proof
is obtainable by the best and surest of all methods
— that of going oneself through the necessary course
of self-training, and projecting one's own double.
For this is no exclusive science reserved for a
favoured few: it is a true science based upon
natural law, and within the reach of every one who
has the requisite qualifications. The humblest
labourer, if psychically competent, may lift the veil
of mystery as well as the proudest sovereign or the
haughtiest priest.

But, it is constantly asked why are not these
secrets thrown open to the world as freely as the

* I have in my possession a small group in silver, given me by a
Buddhist priest in Ceylon, and representing the debate between
Lord Buddha and his projected " Double," upon his Dhamma (Law),
in the presence of the devas, as described in Buddhistic Legend.

OF ALL RELIGIONS. 97

details of chemistiy or any other branch of know-
ledge ? It is a natural question for a superficial
reasoner to put ; but it is not a sound one. The
difference between Psychic and Physical sciences
is that the former can only be learned by the self-
evolution of psychical powers. No college pro-
fessor can evolve them for you, nor any friend,
fellow-student or relative : you must evolve them
for yourself Can another man learn music, or
Sanskrit, or the art of painting or sculpture for
you ? Can another eat, sleep, feel warm or cold,
digest or breathe, for you ? Then why should you
expect him to learn Psychology for you? Anyhow
he cannot do it, however much you expect it ; and
that is the final answer to all such questioners. Nor
is it absolutely certain that, even though you should
try ever so much, you could evolve these powers in
3/ourself Has every man the capacity for Lan-
guages, or Music, or Poetry, or Science, or Philo-
sophy ? You know that each of these require
certain clear aptitudes, and if you have them not
you can never become musician, poet, scientist, or
philosopher. The branches of physical science are
difficult to master even when you have the natural
capacity; but psychical science is more difficult than
any of them — I might almost say than all com-
bined. That is why the Mahatma has been de-
scribed as " the rare efflorescence of a generation
of inquirers" (Sinnett's Occult World, p. 10 1),
and in all generations the true Sadhu has been
reverenced as almost a superhuman being. The

G

98 THE COMMON FOUNDATION'

term applies to him only in the sense of his being
above the weaknesses, the prejudice and the ignor-
ance of his fellow-men. With the most absurd
blindness to the experience of the race, we. Founders
of the Theosophical Society, are constantly being-
asked to turn its members into adepts. We must
show them the short cut to the Himavat, the private
passages to the Asramas in the Neilgherries !
They are not willing to work and suffer for the
getting of knowledge, as all have done who have got
it heretofore ; they must be put into a first-class
carriage, and taken straight behind the Veil of Isis !
They fancy our Society an improved sort of Miracle
Club, or School of Magic, wherein, for ten rupees, a
man can become a Mahatma between the morning
bath and the evening meal ! Such people entirely
overlook the two chief avowed objects of the
Society — the formation of a nucleus of an Universal
Brotherhood for the research after truth and the
promotion of kind feelings between man and man ;
and the pursuit of the study of ancient religions,
philosophies, and sciences. They do not appreciate
this purely unselfish part of the Society's work,
nor seem to think it a noble and most meritorious
thing to labour for the enlightenment and happiness
of mankind. They have an insatiable curiosity to
behold wonders, seeing which they would not, in
many instances, be stimulated to search after the
hidden springs of wisdom, but only sit with open
mouth and pendulous tongue, to wonder how the
trick was done, and what would be the next one !

OF ALL RELIGLONS. 99

Such minds can get no profit by joining the Theo-
sophical Society, and I advise them to stay outside.
We want no such selfish triflers. Ours is a serious,
hard-working, self-denying society, and we want
only men worthy to be called men, and worthy of
our respect. We want men whose first question
will not be "what good can I get by joining ? " but
"what good can I do by joining? " Our work re-
quires the services of men who can be satisfied to
labour for the next generation, and the succeeding
ones ; men who, seeing the lamentable religious
state of the world — seeing noble faiths debased,
temples, chifrchcs, and holy shrines, thronged by
hypocrites and mockers^burn with a desire to re-
kindle the fires of spirituality and morality upon
the polluted altars, and to bring the knowledge of
the Rishis within the reach of a sin-burdened world.
We want Hindus who can love India with so pure
an affection that they will count it a joy and an
honour beyond price to work, and to suffer even,
for her sake. Men we want, who will be able to
put aside for the moment their puerile hatreds of
race, and creed, and caste, as they put away a soiled
cloth or a worn-out garment ; and, with a loving
heart and clean conscience, be ready to join with
every other man — be he black or white, red or
yellow, bond or freeman — whose heart beats
with love for India and her wide-scattered children
of many races throughout the world. We welcome
most those who are ready to trample under foot
their selfishness when it comes in conflict with the

100 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

general good. We welcome the intelligent student
of science, who has such broad conceptions of his
subject that he considers it quite as important to
solve the mystery of Force as to know the atomic
combinations of Matter ; and feeling so, is not
afraid or ashamed to take for his teacher any one
who is competent, whatever be the colour of his
skin.

Now to take our scientific argument one step
further. Granted that the existence of the Double
has been proven, and also its projectibility, how is
it projected ? By an expenditure of energy, of
course. That energy is the vital force set in motion
by the will. The power of concentrating the will
for this purpose is one that may be natural or ac-
quired. There are some persons who have it
naturally so strong in them that they often send
their doubles to distant places, and make them
visible, though they may never have given a day's
study to the science of Psychology : I have known
both men and women of this sort. But it is an
uncommon power, and can never be exercised at
all times except by the true proficient in psycho-
logical science. The operations of the brain in
mechanically evolving the current of will-force have
been more or less carefully expounded by Bain and
Maudeseley, while Professors Tait and Balfour
Stewart have, in their Unseen Universe, traced for
us the dynamic effect of thought-evolution into the
Ether, or, as Hindus have called it these thousands
of }^ears, the Akasa. They go so far as to say that

OF ALL RELLGIONS. loi

it Is not an unthinkable proposition that the
evolution of thought In a single human brain may
dynamically affect a distant planet. In other
words, when a thought Is evolved a vibration of
etheric particles is set up, and this motion must
continue on indefinitely. Now the Yogi evolves
such a current, and turns It in upon himself as a
concentrated force ; continuing the process until
the power is sufficient to force his Double out of its
corporeal encasement, and to project it to whatso-
ever locality he desires. We have thus shown the
fact of the Mayavlrupa, its capability to exist out-
side the body, and the energy which causes Its pro-
jection. I cannot go Into details to elaborate the
argument, for I can only detain you an hour in this
tropical heat. But I trust at least to have shown
3^ou that I rely only upon scientific principles, and
claim no Indulgence like the advocates of super-
naturalism.

And now is this Double — which is nothing
but what is commonly called the " Soul " — im-
mortal ? No, it Is not. So much of it as is matter
in aggregation must ultimately obey the law of
dispersion which, in time, breaks up and forces out
of the objective universe whatever is material. It
is equally the law of planetary as of lesser forms.
As all that is material In a star was primarily con-
densed from the loose atoms in space, so all that is
material in the human body, however coarse or
however fine, was primarily condensed from the
chaotic atoms In the Akasa. And to that dis-

A ■«

102 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

persed condition it must return whenever the
centripetal force that attracted it into the human
nucleus ceases to resist the centrifugal force, or
attraction of the atoms of space. This brings us
right upon the problem of a continuity of existence
beyond the physical death. Here is the dividing
line between the world's religions. The dualists
affirm that this soul goes to heavenly or infernal
places to be for ever blest or punished, according to
the deeds done in the body. Though they do not
use the very word, yet it is the doctrine of - Merit
they teach. For even those extremely unscientific
theologians who affirm that a punishing and reward-
ing Deity has from all time pre-ordained some to
be saved and some to be damned, tell us that the
merit of faith In a certain system of morals and dis-
cipline, and a share in the vicarious merit of another,
are pre-requisites to future bliss. We may assume
therefore, that merit, or KARMA, is the corner-stone
of Religion. This is both a logical and scientific pro-
position, for the thoughts, words and deeds of a
man are so many causes which must work out cor-
responding effects ; the good ones can only pro-
duce good effects, the bad ones only bad, — unless
opposed and neutralized by stronger ones that
are good. I need not go into the metaphysical
analysis of what is bad and what good. We
may pass it over with the simple postulate that
whatever has either a debasing tendency upon the
individual, or promotes injustice, misery, suffering
ignorance and animalism in society, is essentially

OF ALL RELIGIONS. 103

bad, and that what tends to the contrary is good. I
should call that a bad religion which taught that it
is meritorious to do evil that good may come ; for
good can never come out of evil ; the evil tree pro-
duces not good fruit. A religion that can only be
propagated at the point of the sword, or upon the
martyr's pile, or under instruments of torture, or
by devastating countries and enslaving their popu-
lations, or by cunning stratagems seducing ignorant
children or adults away from their families and
castes and ancestral creeds — is a vile and devilish
religion, the enemy of truth, the destroyer of social
happiness. If a religion is not based upon a lie,
the fact can be proved, and it can stand unshaken,
as the rocky mountain, against all the assaults of
sceptics. A true religion is not one that runs to
holes and corners, like a naked leper to hide his
sores, when a bold critic casts his searching eye upon
it and asks for its credentials. If I stand here to
defend what is good in Hinduism, it is because of
my full conviction that that good exists, and that
however fantastic, and even childish, some may
think its tangled overgrowth of customs, legends
and superstitions, there is the rock of truth, of
scientific truth, below them all. On that rock it
is destined to stand throuc^h countless comincf
generations, as it has already stood through the count-
less generations which have professed that hoary
Faith, since the Rishis shot from their Himalayan
heights the blazing light of spiritual truth over a
dark and ignorant world.

ro4 THE C 0 MAW N FOUNDATION

It is most reasonable that you should ask me
what those of you are to do who are not gifted
with the power to get outside the illusion-breeding
screen of the body and to acquire an intimate actual
perception of " Divine " truth through the developed
psychical senses. As we have ourselves shown
that all men cannot be adepts, what comfort do we
hold out to the rest ? This involves a momentary
glance at the theory of re-births. If this little span
of human life we are now enjoying be the entire
sum of human existence, if you and I never lived
before and will never live' again, then there would
be no ray of hope to offer to any mind that was
not capable of the intellectual suicide of blind faith.
The doctrine of a vicarious atonement for sin is not
merely unthinkable, it is positively repulsive to one
who can take a larger and more scientific view of
man's origin and destiny than that of the dualists.
One whose religious perceptions rest upon the in-
tuition that cause and effect are equal : that there
is a perfect and correspondential reign of Law
throughout the universe : that under any reason-
able conception of eternity, there must always have
been at work the same forces as are now active —
must scout the assertion that this brief instant of
sentient life is our only one. Science has traced
us back through an inconceivably long sequence of
existences — in the human, the animal, the vege-
table, and the mineral kingdoms — to the cradle of
future sentient life, the Ether of space. Would a
man of science, then, make bold to affirm that you

OF ALL L^ELIGIONS. 105

and I, who represent a relatively high stage of
evolution, came to be what we are without previous
development In other births, whether on this earth
or other planets ? And If he would not, he must,
In conformity with his own canons of the conserva-
tion and correlation of energy, deduce from the
whole analogy of nature that there Is another life
for us beyond this life. The force which evolved
us cannot be expended, It must run on In Its vibra-
tory line until Its limit Is reached. And that limit
the Hindu and the Buddhist, the Jain and the
Zoroastrian adept, all define as that abstract state
which lies beyond the phenomenal one of Illusions
and pain. Whatever they may call It — whether
Muktl, or Nirvana, or Light, — It Is all the same Idea :
It Is the outcome of the eternal Principle of energy
after passing around a cycle of correlations with
matter. That final limit the " Middle Nature," as a
whole, never reaches, for It Is material as to Its form,
size, colour and atomic relations : if we call It the
" Soul," therefore, we may say that the " soul " is
not Immortal ; for that which Is material tends
always to resume Its primitive atomic condition.
And the Hindu Philosopher, arguing from this
premiss, teaches that what does escape out of
the phenomenal world is Atmd, the SPIRIT.
Thus, while from the Hindu standpoint it Is
correct to say the " soul " Is not immortal, it
must also be added that the " spirit," Is ; for,
unlike the Soul, or Middle Nature, Atmd con-
tains no mortal and perishable ingredients,

io6 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

but Is of its essence both unchangeable and
eternal.

The confusion of the words " Soul " and " Spirit,"
so common now, is perplexing and mischievous to
the last degree.

It Is no argument to bring against the Asiatic
theory of Palingenesis, that we have no remem-
brance of former existences. We have forgotten
nineteen-twentieths of the incidents of our present
life. Memory plays us the most prankish tricks.
Every one of us can recollect some one trifling
incident out of a whole day's, month's, year's, inci-
dents of our earliest years, and one that was in no
way important, nor apparently more calculated
than the others to impress Itself indelibly upon the
memory. Howls this? And If this utter forget-
fulness of the majority of our life-Incidents Is no
proof that we did not exist consciously at those
times, then our oblivion of the entire experiences
In previous births is no argument against the fact
of such previous births. Nor, let me hasten to add,
are the alleged remembrances of previous births,
affirmed by the modern school of Relncarnationists,
valid proofs of such births : they may be — I do not
say they arc — mere tricks of the Imagination, cere-
bral pictures suggested by chance external In-
fluences. The only question with us Is whether
In science and logic It Is necessary for us to postu-
late for ourselves a series of births, somewhere, at
various times. And this I think must be answered
in the afflrmatlve."^

* I have explained in my Buddhist Catechism the Buddhist

OF ALL P^ELIGIONS. 107

So, then, conceding the plurality of births emd
coming back to our argument, we see that even
though any one of us may not have the capacity
for acquiring adeptship in this birth, it is still
a possibility to acquire it in a succeeding one.
If we make the beginning we create a cause which
will, in due time, and in proportion to its original
energy, sooner or later give us adeptship, and with
it the knowledge of the hidden laws of being, and
of the way to break the shackles of matter and
obtain Mukti — Emancipation. And the first step
in this beginning is to cleanse ourselves from vicious
desires and habits, to do away with unreasoning
prejudices, dogmatism and intolerance, to try to
discover what is essentially fundamental, and what
is non-essential, in the religion one professes, and to
live up to the highest ideal of goodness, intelligence,
and spiritual-mindedness that one can extract from
that religion and from the intuitions of one's own
nature. I regard that man as a mad iconoclast
who would strike down any religion — especially
one of the world's ancient religions — without
examining it and giving it credit for its intrinsic
truth. I call him a vain enthusiast who would
patch up a new faith out of the ancient faiths,
merely to have his name in the mouths of men. I
call him a foolish zealot who would expect to make

theory of the non-transfer of memory from birth to birtli.
Briefly, a memory of each birth is evolved within that birth, and
when a person can attain to the " fourth stage of Dhyana," or in-
terior evolution, he can psychically recall all the series of memories
belonging to his consecutive births.

io8 THE COMMON FOUNDATION

all men see truth as he sees it, shice no two men
can even see alike a simple tree or shrub, far less
grasp metaphysical propositions with the same
clearness. As for those who go about the world
to propagate their peculiar religious belief, without
the ability to show its superiority to other beliefs
which they would supplant, or to answer without
equivocation the fair questions of critics — they are
either well-meaning visionaries or presumptuous
fools. But mad, or vain, or stupid, as either of
these may be, if sincere they are personally
entitled to the respect that sincerity always com-
mands. Unless the whole world is ready to accept
one infallible chief, and blindly adopt one creed as
the wisest, the only rule must ever be to tolerate in
our fellow-men that infirmity of judgment to which
we are ourselves always liable, and from which we are
never wholly free. And that is the declared policy
and platform of the Theosophical Society — as you
may see by reading the pamphlet containing its Rules
and Bye-Laws. It is the broad platform of mutual
tolerance and universal brotherhood.

There must be elementary stages leading up to-
wards adeptship, you will say. There are, and mod-
ern science has laid out some of them. I told you
that Psychology is the most difficult of sciences to
get to the bottom of, but still Western research has
cleared many obstacles from the path. Mesmerism
is by far the most necessary branch of study to take
up first. It gives you (i) proof of the separability
of mind from conscious physical existence ; a mes-

OF ALL RELIGIONS. IC9

mcrized subject may show an active intellectual con-
sciousness and discrimination while his body is not
only asleep but buried in so profound a trance as
to more resemble a livid corpse than a living man ;
(2) it gives you proof of the actual transmissibility
of thought from one mind to another : the mesmeric
operator can, without uttering a word or giving a
perceptible signal, transmit to his subject the
thought in his own mind ; (3) it easily proves the
reality of a power to hear sounds and see things
occurring at great distances, to communicate with
the thought of distant persons, to look through walls,
down into the bowels of the earth, into the depths
of the ocean, and through all other obstructions to
corporeal vision ; (4) as also of a power to look into
the human body, detect the seat and causes of
disease and prescribe suitable remedies, and to
impart health and restore physical and mental
vigour by the laying on of the mesmerist's hands, or
by his imparting his robust vital force to a glass of
water for the patient to drink, or to his wearing
apparel ; (5) of a power to see the past and even to
prognosticate the future. These and many more
things Mesmeric Science enables a person, not an
adept of the higher Asiatic Psychology, to prove com-
pletely to himself and to others. I say this on the
authority of a Committee of the Academy of France.
And then, besides Mesmerism, there are the highly
important branches of Psychometry and Me-
diumism,and others that to barely mention would be
beyond the scope of my present lecture. Each and

no THE COMMON FOUNDATION

all help the inquirer towards the acquisition of
* Divine' wisdom, towards an intelligent and scien-
tific conception of the laws of that " Eternal Some-
thing," as Mr. Herbert Spencer calls it, which you may
call God, or by any other name you like. Whatever
name you may choose for it, the knowledge of it is
the highest goal for human thought, and to be in a
state of harmony with it the noblest, first and most
necessary aspiration of an intelligent man. The
pursuit of this knowledge is, in one word, Theo-
SOPHY, and the proper methods of research consti-
tute Theosophical Science.

And thus in a single sentence I have answered a
thousand questions as to what Theosophy is, and
what the object of theosophical research. Most of
you, like the great mass of Hindus, have, until this
moment, been imagining to yourselves that we were
come to preach some new religion, to propagate
some new conceit, to set up some new " New Dis-
pensation." You see now how far you have been
from the mark, and what popular injustice has been
done to us. Instead of preaching a new religion,
we are preaching the superior claims of the oldest
religions in the world to the confidence of the pre-
sent generation. It is not our poor Ignorant selves
that we offer to you as guides and gurus, but the
venerable Rishis of the archaic ages. It is not an
American or a Russian, but a hoary Hindu philoso-
phy that we claim your allegiance for. We come
not to pull down and destroy, but to rebuild, the

OF ALL RELIGIONS. 1 1 1

strong fabric of Asiatic religion. We ask you to
help us to set it up again, not on the shifting and
treacherous sands of blind faith, but upon the rocky
base of truth, and to cement its separate stones
together with the strong cement of Modern Science.
Hinduism proper has nothing zvhatever to fear from
the researches of Science. Whatever of falsehood
may have come down to you from previous genera-
tions we may well dispense with, and when the time
comes for us to see through our present viaya
(illusions), we will cheerfully do so. " The world
was not made in a day ; " and we are not such
ignorant enthusiasts as to dream that in a day, or
a year, or a generation, long established errors can
be detected and done away with. Let us but
always desire to know the truth, and hold ourselves
ready to speak for it, act for it, die for it, if necessary,
when we may discover it. People ask us what is
our religion, and how it is possible for us to be on
equal terms of friendliness with people of such an-
tagonistic faiths. I answer that what may be our
personal preference among the world's religions
has nothing to do with the general question of
Theosophy. We are advocating Theosophy, as the
only method by which one may discover that
Eternal Something, not asking people of another
creed than ours to take our creed and throw aside
their own. We two Founders profess a religion of
tolerance, charity, kindness, altruism, or love of one's
fellows ; a religion that does not try to discover all
that is bad in our neighbour's creed, but all that is

112 THE COMMON FO UN DA TION

good, and to make him live up to the best code of
morals and piety he can find in it. We profess, in
a word, the religion that is embodied in the golden
rule of Confucius, of Gautama, and of the founders
of nearly all the great religions, and that is preserved
for the admiration and reverence of posterity, in the
edicts of the good King Asoka, on the monoliths
and rocks of Hindustan. Following this simple
creed, we find no difficulty whatever in living upon
terms of perfect peace with the adherent of any
creed who will meet us in a reciprocal spirit. If we
have been at war with the pretended Christians, it
is because they have belied the teachings of him
whom they call their Master, and by every vile
and unworthy subterfuge have tried to oppose the
growth of our influence. It is they who war upon
us, for defending Hinduism and the other Asiatic
religions, not we who war upon them. If they would
practise their own precepts we would never use voice
or pen against them ; for then they would respect the
religious feelings of the Hindu, the Parsi, the Jain,
the Jew, the Buddhist and the Mussulman, and de-
serve our respect in return. But they began with
calumny instead of argument, and calumny, I fear, will
be their favourite weapon to the very end. In com-
parison with the unmanly conduct of my countryman
(Rev. Mr. Cook) who lectured here the other day, de-
nouncing the Vedas as filthy abomination and the
Theosophlsts as disreputable adventurers, how sweet
and noble was the behaviour of that Mohammedan
lawyer who defended Raymond Lully, when a

OF ALL kEUGiONS. 113

Mussulman tribunal was disposed to punish him
for trying to propagate his religion in their city.
"If you think it a meritorious act, O Moslems !
for a Mussulman to try to preach Islam among the
heretics, why should we be uncharitable to this
Christian, whose motive is identical ? " I cannot re-
member the exact words, but that is the sense.
The tender voice of Charity spoke by that lawyer's
lips, and his words were the echo of the spirit of
Truth.

Come then, old men and young men of Madras,
if you call yourselves lovers of India, and would make
yourselves worthy of the blessings of the Rishis,
join hands and hearts with us to carry on this great
work. We ask you for no honours, no worldly
benefits or rewards, for ourselves. We do not seek
you for followers ; choose your proper leaders from
among your wisest and purest men, and we will
follow them. We do not offer ourselves as your
teachers, for all we can teach is what we have learnt
from this Asia ; the Gospel we circulate is derived
from the recluses of the Indian mountains, not from
the professors of the West. It is for India we plead,
for the restoration of her ancient religion, for the
vindication of her ancient glory, for the maintenance
of her greatness in science, in the arts, in philosophy.
If any selfish consideration of sect or caste, or local
prejudice, bar the way, put it aside, at least until you
have done something for the land of your birth, for
the renown of your noble race. In this great crowd I
see painted upon your foreheads the vertical sect-

H

114 THE COMMON 2^0 UND ATI ON.

marks of the Dwaitis and the Visishtadvaitis, and
the horizontal stripes of the Sivaites. These are the
surface indications of reh'gious differences that
have often burst out in bitter words and bitter
deeds. But, with another sense than the eye of the
body, I see another set of sect-marks, indicative of
far greater peril to Indian nationality and Indian
spirituality than those. These marks are branded
deep upon the brains and hearts of some — though,
happily, not all — of your most promising young
men, the choicest children of the sorrowino: Mother
India, and they are eating away the sense of pride
that they belong to this race and have inherited
this noble religion. These are the B.A., B.L., and
M.A. brands that the University over yonder has
marked you with. After three years of intercourse
with the Hindu nation and of identification with its
thought, I almost feel a shudder when some noble-
browcd youth is presented to me as a titled gradu-
ate. Not that I undervalue the importance of
college culture, nor the honourable distinction one
earns by acquiring University degrees ; but I say
that, if sucJi distinctions can only be had at the cost of
ones national honour and of ones spiritual intuitions^
they are a curse to the graduate and a calamity to
his country. I would rather see a dirty Bairagee,
who has his ancestors' intuitive belief in man's
spiritual capabilities, than the most brilliant gradu-
ate ever turned out of the University, who has lost
that belief. Let me keep company with the naked
hermit of the jungle rather than with a graduate

OF ALL RELLGIONS. 115

who, though loaded with degrees, has, by a course
of false history and false science, been made to lose
all faith in anything greater in the universe than a
Haeckel or a Comte, or In any powers in himself
higher than those of procreation, thought or diges-
tion. Call me a Conservative, if you will ; I am
conservative to this extent that, until our modern
professors can show me a philosophy that is un-
assailable ; a science that Is self-demonstrative, that
Is, axiomatic ; a psychology that takes in all psychic
phenomena; a new religion that is all truth and with-
out a flaw, I shall proclaim that which I feel, which
I know to be the fact, — viz., that the Rishis knew the
secrets of Nature and of Man, that there Is but one
common platform of all religions, and that upon it
ever stood and now stand, in fraternal concord and
amity, the hierophants and esoteric initiates of the
world's great faiths. That platform is Theosophy.
May the blessing of its ancient Masters be upon
our poor stricken India !

THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC
BASIS OF RELIGION.*

Notwithstanding the very complimentary terms
kindly employed by my honoured friend, the
Chairman, in bespeaking your attention to the
remarks I shall make, I feel most keenly my
incapacity to deal with our subject as it deserves.
When I face this vast audience, and recollect that
it represents the highest culture of Bengal ; when I
think that we are met under the very shadow ol
Calcutta University ; when I reflect that these
walls have resounded to the voices of native
orators, whose eloquence can hardly be surpassed
by the most eminent senators in Western Parlia-
ments and Congresses, and that, from the very spot
where I stand, you have been addressed upon the
most burning questions in religion and politics by
Kally Churn Banner] i, Lalmohun Ghose, Keshub
Chunder Sen, Surendra Nath Bannerji, Kristo Das
Pal, Sivanath Sastri, and Protap Chunder Mozum-
dar, — a sense of personal inferiority to those great
masters of rhetoric and logic oppresses and warns
me. But I have a message to deliver — a message
of reproach in part, but also one of encouragement.
I may not soothe your ears with the melody of

* A LecLiue Delivered at the Town Hall, Cakutta, llh Aprils 1S82.

BASIS OF RELIGION. 1 1 7

your own gifted speakers; but I must deliver it,
though all of them were here ; ay, though all
the great dead of the past generations, who gave
renown to the name of Bengal, were to cluster
about this platform. I would they might do so ;
indeed, I should feel more sure of ^he moral
regeneration of India, if those glorious ancestors of
yours could but confront you for one short hour.
If you could but hear what they would say of the
ways in which you are maintaining their honour
and sustaining their dignity, I think I should not
then need to utter a single word : one look at the ex-
pression of their faces, as their glance, of mingled
reproach and displeasure shot through to the very
marrow of your being, would be quite enough. If
you want to estimate modern Bengal, with its
foreign clothes and foreign vices, at its proper
valuation, put it beside ancient Bengal. Call out
your pertest Babu, who has fed on Spencer and
Mill until he fancies himself able to build a new
religion, or even a new planet ; clothe him with all
his academic honours ; stuff his hands full of his
diplomas; gather around him all the paraphernalia of
Western culture, including the spirituous aids to re-
flection. If we were toask this B.A. — this Bad Aryan
—to give to the present audience his candid opinion
of himself, he would probably tell you that he was
the type and the bemc ideal of Hindu development
— a fair representative of what young India might
become under the fertilising sprinkles of the college
watering-pot. But if we had the power to evoke

Ii8 THEOSOFHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

the shades of the great Menu, of Kapila, Gautama,
Patanjali, Kanada, and Veda Vyasa ; of Jaimini,
Narada, Marichi, Vasishta, and other really great
Hindus, and could place them before you on this
platform, how would our trousered B.A. appear
then ? That is the gist of the whole question. A
nation which has had representatives such as those
I have named, need not go to any foreign teachers
for an imprimatur o\ culture. When they can match
•the Aryan Rishis, then it will be time enough to
look up to them as the gods of the academic
BraJimaloka. And that is part of my message to
young Bengal.

I know that the first question which arises in the
minds of my audience is, what motive I have in
talking thus. You listen in surprise to hear a white
man speak, as, hitherto, you have only heard your
orthodox Hindus speak. And as you have always
observed that a motive underlies all human action,
you must be asking yourselves what is my motive ?
I must therefore preface my discourse with some
personal explanations.

Elsewhere in India it is pretty well known how
we Theosophists came here, and why. For three
years — that is, since February, 1879, — we have been
living under the public eye at Bombay, and every-
body knows what sort of people we are, how we
live, and what we do. We have lived down serious
suspicions and calumnies. I could not give you a
better proof of this than by referring you to the
action of the Hindu and Parsi educated public the

71. i SIS OF RELIGION. 119

other day when a ranting missionary from my own
country Indulged In false and insulting remarks
about us, In one of his public lectures. The re-
sponse the natives made showed most unmistakeably
that his slanders had Increased rather than dimin-
ished their friendliness for their theosophist friends.
It will be so here. Though this Is my first visit to
Calcutta, It will not, I trust, be the last. I expect
henceforth to spend at least two or three months of
each year in Bengal, and you will thus have ample
opportunity to become acquainted with me. We
are not birds of passage ; we have not come to
India, as Sinbad did to the Valley of Diamonds, to
pick up what we can, and after a time flit away. We
have not the least intention of returning to our own
countries to reside. India is our chosen home, the
land of our adoption; and the Hindus are our dearest
friends, If not our brothers. We were not driven out
of our Western homes. If we had chosen to stop
there, we should now be enjoying all comforts and
pleasures. In my native land, where the highest
offices of State are open to all aspirants, I might
even now, if I should return, hold, as I havefor many
years before held, posts of honour and importance.
One of our most influential New York journals, a
journal which circulates a lac and a quarter of
copies every week-day, and of its Sunday edition
167,000 copies, asked, the other day, why I should
expatriate myself, and why I did not return to my
own people to teach them about Asiatic philosophy?
Nor did I leave America to better my fortunes. A

120 THEOSOniY, THE SCIENTIFIC

sorry way it v\'ould be of improving one's prospects
to give up an income of thousands of rupees, and
devote every moment of one's time to the interests
of a philanthropic society, for whose support I
must pay thousands annually out of my private
means. There are the Treasurer's accounts,
audited and certificated by the Council of the
Society, which show that I am stating the bare
fact. They show that since we began at New York
our preparations to depart for India, Madame
Blavatsky and I have given towards the expenses
of our Society more than Rs. 25,000. And since
we came we have not asked a Hindu, a Parsi, a
Buddhist, or any one else, to give us one solitary
rupee for our private benefit. Well, admitting all
this to be true, the question will all the more press
home upon you — what is our motive, why should
we take up this life of public drudgery, move over
Asia like uneasy ghosts, expose ourselves to the
darts of slander and the stings of suspicion ? I
shall tell you ; the answer is simple enough. We
follow an idea ; and for it we face obstacles, dis-
comfort, and danger, incur expense and trouble,
resign as worthless what men usually prize, and
relinquishing family and home, country and friends,
make a new home in Asia, and seek friends and
brethren among her ancient races. We are
covetous ; yes, but it is for knowledge. We are
ambitious ; yes, but only for a place among those
who have loved humanit}-, irrespective of caste,
race and creed. We are conspirators \ )'es, but

BA SIS OF J^ RL TGI ON. 1 2 1

only with the good and true souls who have deep
religious aspirations, and who, deploring the
darkened spiritual state of mankind, would point
back to the beacons of hope that the Ris/iis of old
lit on the mountain peaks of Aryan philosophy.
When you come to know us, you will recall my
present words, and be ready to testify that I told
you only the truth.

But how comes about this w^onder that we
foreigners should feel so deep a reverence for
Hindu philosophy, and why even then should we
have left our country to come here ?

In the year 1874, Madame Blavatsky and I met.
I had been a student of practical psychology for
nearly a quarter of a century. From boyhood no
problem had interested me so much as the mystery
of man, and I had been seeking for light upon it
wherever it could be found. To understand the
physical man, I had read something of anatom}-,
physiology and chemistry. To get an insight into
the nature of mind and thought, I had read the
various authorities of orthodox science, and practi-
cally investigated the heterodox branches of
phrenology, physiognomy, mesmerism and psycho-
metry. To understand mesmerism one must have
read Von Reichenbach's " Researches on Magnet-
ism, Electricity, &c., &c., in their relations to the
Vital Force," and I venture to say that no one can
possibly comprehend the rationale of the astound-
ing phenomena of modern spiritualism, who has
not prepared himself by a glance at all the subjects

122 THE OS 0 PHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

above enumerated. So, then, this had been my
bent of mind since boyhood, and although I ahvays
took an active part in all that concerned my
country and fellow-countrymen, and an especially
active one during our late Civil War, yet my heart
was not set on worldly affairs. In the year above
mentioned (1874), I was investigating a most start-
ling case of mediumship, that of William Eddy, an
uneducated farmer, in whose house were nightly
appearing, and often talking, the alleged spirits of
dead persons. I will not go into particulars just
now, for I have other things to speak about ;
perhaps I may make it the subject of some future
discourse. Suffice it that with my own eyes I saw,
within the space of about three months, some five
hundred of these apparitions, under circumstances
which, to my mind, excluded the possibility of
trickery or fraud. My observations were com-
municated to a New York daily journal during the
whole period, and the facts excited the greatest
wonder. Madame Blavatsky and I met at this
farm-house, and the similarity of our tastes for
mystical research led to an intimate acquaintance.
She soon proved to me that, in comparison with
even the chela of an Indian Ma/mtnia, the authori-
ties I had been accustomed to look up to knew
absolutely nothing. Little by little she opened
out to me as much of the truth as my experiences
had fitted me to grasp. Step by step- 1 was
forced to relinquish illusory beliefs, cherished
for twenty years. And as the light gradually

BASIS OF RELIGION. 123

dawned on my mind, my reverence for the unseen
teachers who had instructed her grew apace. At
the same time, a deep and insatiable yearning-
possessed me to seek their society, or, at
least, to take up my residence in a land
which their presence glorified, and incorporate
myself with a people whom their greatness en-
nobled. The time came when I was blessed with
a visit from one of these MaJiatinas in my own
room at New York — a visit from him, not in the
physical body, but in the " double," or Mayavi-
rupa. When I asked him to leave me some
tangible evidence that I had not been the dupe of
a vision, but that he had indeed been there, he
removed from his head the puggri he wore, and
giving it to me, vanished from my sight. That
cloth I have still, and in one corner is marked in
thread the cipher or signature he always attaches
to the notes he writes to myself and others. This
visit and his conversation sent my heart at one
leap around the globe, across oceans and continents,
over sea and land, to India, and from that moment
I had a motive to live for, an end to strive after.
That motive was to gain the Aryan wisdom ; that
end to work for its dissemination. Thenceforth I
began to count the years, the months, the days, as
they passed, for they were bringing me ever nearer
the time when I should drag my body after the eager
thought that had so long preceded it. In Novem-
ber, 1875, we founded the Theosophical Society as
a nucleus around which might gather all those of

124 THEOSOPIIY, THE SCIENTIFIC

every race and land, who were in sympathy with
our mode of research ; and as no such body could
have any permanence unless we should eliminate
the ever obvious causes of disagreement among
men — religious bigotry and social intolerance — we
organised it on the basis of universal brotherhood.
The idea must have been a good one, since it has suc-
ceeded. I doubt if any society of a cognate character
has ever so rapidly increased as ours. We already
have branches in most parts of the world, and are
fast overspreading India with our organizations.
The branch I shall tomorrow form at Calcutta
will be the twenty-fifth in this country established
since February, 1879, and by the time I reach
Bombay there will be twenty-eight. But I am
getting ahead of my subject: let me turn. During
the three years w^ien I Avas waiting to come to
India, I had other visits from the LlaJiatnias^ and
they were not all Hindus or Cashmeris. I know
some fifteen in all, and among them Copts,
Tibetans, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, a Hun-
garian, and a Cypriote. But, whatever they are,
however much they may differ externally as to
race, religion and caste, they are in perfect agree-
ment as to the fundamentals of .occult science and
the scientific basis of religion.

The long-wished-for time came at last ; our
private affairs were settled, the New York Society
was placed in competent hands ; and my colleague
and I embarked. Many friends accompanied us to
the vessel to say good-bye, and their waving hand-

BASIS OF RELIGION, 125

kerchiefs, which we watched as long as we could see
them, were a testimony to the exiles that they were
leaving loving hearts behind. How thoroughly, not-
withstanding, I had transferred my love to the coun-
try of my adoption, you may imagine when I tell you
tliat as our steamer passed out of the harbour to the
ocean, I cast no " longing, lingering look behind."
Though I was leaving the native land I had loved so
dearly, and had even risked my life for, and never
expected to behold it again, I did not even give it
the tribute of a sigh ; but, descending to my cabin,
opened the map of India, and sent my thought to
my Land of Promise. But when, after buffeting the
storms of various waters, we neared Bombay, then
far into the night, alone I paced the forecastle to
catch the first glimpse of the beacon-light that
waited to welcome me home. The passengers were
fast asleep, and only the watch on deck and myself
were there to see the stars of the Indian sky, and the
fire-seething waves of the Indian sea. The midnight
bells were struck, but still the lighthouse could not
be made out. At last, at one in the morning, the
officer on duty, who knew my anxiety, relieved it
by pointing to a faintly luminous speck at the
water's edge, and telling me that that was Bombay
light. My heart gave a throb, as perhaps throbs
the heart of an old Hindu who has been long away
in foreign countries ; and a feeling of joy and
pleasure came across me to think that my journey
was ended, and my real life about to begin. I had
pictured to myself a Hindu nation homogeneous,

126 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

at least, as regards spirituality and love of their
ancestors — one great family, rejoicing in the Aryan
name, and with a religious faith built upon the
assurance, if not the knowledge, of theosophical
truth. Though I knew there w^ere religious sects
and cliques, I thought that these barriers were
not high enough to keep Hindus apart. I had
written to Keshub Babu to ask him to join in our
work, and I was ready to serve in any subordinate
capacity, under and with anybody, no matter
whom, in the interest of India and Indians. I only
asked some little corner, however small, w^here I
might incorporate myself with their national life
and thought ; and as I asked nothing but the
privilege to learn and work, I hoped tobe taken at my
word and tobe viewed as a friend. But I was not:
the back of the hand, not the palm, was offered me.
Dogged by the Government Police as suspects,
my colleague and I were not happy enough to find
a sure refuge in Indian hearts. Our char-
acters were traduced by the enemies of
Indian religion without a protest from its
followers ; it seemed, in fact, as though we were
doomed to see every hope crushed — every one we
had an affection for turn his back upon us. Thus
under a black sky of trouble, we went on for weary
months together, keeping up our courage by re-
membering what goal we had in view, and by
degrees learning to pluck success from the very
thorn bush of disaster. We founded our Bombay
Branch, then another and another ; we established

BASIS OF RELIGION. 127

our magazine, the TJicosopJdst^ and made it a suc-
cess ; we went to Ceylon, and were greeted with
enthusiasm ; and though some who mistook us for
sectarians have broken with us, the third year of
our Indian work now opens up, bright and full of
promise. The worst, we think, is over ; and every
month, as I remarked in a recent lecture, we are
being drawn nearer and nearer to the Indian heart.
I venture to take thevastnessof the present audience
as a proof of this fact, for I cannot believe it is only
idle curiosity that has brought all of you to-
gether. Our appeals to you to remember the
glories of Aryavarta and strive to revive them,
have not fallen upon deaf ears ; the dry bones are
stirring with the flutter of a higher and nobler
spiritual life ; the echoes of sympathy are coming
towards us from North and South, from East
and West. Bombay has spoken, the North-
West has spoken. Madras has spoken, and there
have even been whispers from Bengal, though we
have never, until now, spoken to Bengali audiences.
Away with despondency and dejection ! The morn
is breaking, and if we wait but a little longer, we
may see the perfect day.

No one feels more sensibly than I do the anomaly
that a white man should be appealing to you to
study your religion. This is work for your learned
Pundits. But they are silent ; and what is to be
done ? I met the greatest Pundits of India at
Benares, and, after showing to them the effects of
Western culture upon the religious thought of

128 THE OS 0 PHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

Young India, implored them to rise to the occasion,
and to do their duty. As though the voice of the
Rishis were speaking by my Hps, I arraigned them
at the bar of their country, and said that history
would not hold them guiltless, if the entire body of
our youth should fall into materialist scepticism.
I begged that they would at least compile tracts
and catechisms, which should embody the great
principles of morality and religion, the broad out-
lines of philosophy and spiritual science laid
down in the Sastras, so that it might be seen
that a Hindu need look nowhere outside his own
literature for inspiration to noble deeds and noble
living. The Pundits listened, applauded, signed
articles of union between their Sabha and our
Society, and then — did nothing more. I am wait-
ing on and hoping almost against hope that from
among the greatest of your living scholars will
step forth a moral regenerator to lead you
back from your desultory wanderings to the
solid ground of Hindu philosophy. Must India
call in vain ? Must the empty voice give back the
hollow echoes of her appeal ? Is there not, even in
Bengal, one Aryan heart that can be touched with
the fire from the sacred altars of religion ? Where
is the Brahmin who is able, like his pure and holy
forefather, to perform the AgniJiotra in the true
way, and draw from the ambient sky the fire of
Agni upon his kusa grass ? Where is the Brahmin
who has the same fire in the hollow of his hand ?
Alas ! no answer comes. There are thousands

BASIS OF RELIGION. 129

of Brahmins, but no adept AgniJiotris. Among
these swarming millions, and amid this teeming
life, the aspirant lor spiritual instruction finds
scarcely a single Guru who can practically teach
the Yoga science. Hundreds of bright young men
are suffering from spiritual starvation. Can we
help them ? Is there no hope to offer the youths
who have learnt to regard modern science as the
sole authority in questions of a religious and
scientific nature ? For that is the ordeal that the
advocates of Aryan philosophy must pass. It is
useless to try and cover it up, or evade the alterna-
tive : either we must prove Hinduism to stand
upon the ground of science, or leave it to its
fate. I think we can hold out this hope, and can
give this assurance. I believe that modern research
has arrived at certain facts which help us to under-
stand our subject if we collate and adjust them to
each other. And this brings us to consider the
second part of our discourse — an explanation of
the word Theosophy, and its application to the
Yoga Vidya.

Properly speaking, Theosophy may be defined as
the knowledge of " Divine " wisdom. If there
were a Western science of Psychology, worthy of
the name, this would be its crowning glory ; the
seeker after knowledge of the " soul " would end by
becoming a Theosophist. For one can gain what
is called Divine wisdom only in one way — through
the development of the psychic powers. Religion
is most strictly a personal affair : every man makes

130 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

his own religion and his own God : that is to say,
if he has any idea at all about religion or God, they
must be his own, not somebody's else ideas.
Another man can no more think for you in these
matters, so as to do you any good, than he can eat
or sleep for you. You may think some man very
great, and be ready to wash and garland and swing
him like an idol, and eat the dust of his feet, and
all that sort of thing ; and you may fancy that his
commonest utterances are divinely inspired. You
may call j'ourself a Tantrika, a Sivaite, a Vaish-
nava, a Buddhist, or whatever you please. But, after
all, when it comes to your actual religious experi-
ence, it will be your experience, measured and
limited hy your own personal, psychical and theoso-
phical capacity. It is simply tyranny to try and
force a particular religion upon any man. So, as I
said before, religion is something personal ■; and it
is also something sacred, something not to be
rudely interfered with and pried into. The true
moralist will exert his influence to make his fellow-
men live up to the best features of their respective
faiths ; it is the most audacious of experiments to
try and glue together bits of a number of good re-
ligions into a new mosaic.

I shall not enter here into any discussion as to
what is meant by the word " Soul." I have my
ideas, and they may conflict with yours. Call it
what you please, the only radical point to reach is the
fact that in the nature of man there is this depart-
ment which is called psychical, and which is not to

BASIS OF A' ELI GI ON. 131

be included in the most objective, or physical and
mechanical part of the self. The orthodox psycho-
logist will not concede you this point. He will meet
you at the very threshold of the inquiry, and affirm
that there is no more of man than is embraced in
the ingenious mechanism of his body. The English
poet, Pope, coined an expression to signify his
scorn of a man who was devoid of great qualities —
one who was

** Fix'd, like a plant, to its peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate and rot."

But if you add to this the intellectual capacity as
the result of cerebral function, have we not here the
type of the " man " of modern Psychology ? What
does that science make of the human being but a
digestive, locomotive, procreating, and thinking
mechanism ? Can you find anything better than
this in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer and the
entire a posteriori school ? I will ^\mq you a year
to pore over Mr. Spencer's Principles of PsycJiology^
or over The Emotions and the Will, and The Senses
and the Intellect, of Professor Bain (whom
some of the greatest critics of our day consider as
the master psychologist of the age), and then defy
you to find the secret of true psychology ;
or, if you choose, you may con the works of
James Mill, Cousin, Locke, Kant, Hobbes, Hegel,
Fichte, Huxley, Haeckel, John Stuart Mill,
Comte, and all the learned writers of the kind.
You will see a good deal of protoplasm, and pro-
togen, and monads ; but you will not discover the

132 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

nature of " soul " in any of them. After wading

through their heavy volumes, you will arrive at the

conclusion that they are little better than obscura-

tionists — intellectual clouds between you and the

sun of spiritual truth. You will find some of them

light, fleecy clouds, some so thin and vapoury as to

let through a good deal of light ; others black and

murky clouds, bursting with suppressed lightnings.

If you go on far enough, you will see that these

heavier intellectual masses, like the prototypes in

Nature with which we are comparing them, will

discharge their thunders at each other as they come

into opposition, and then there is a great noise and

heavy discharge of critical artillery. But the net

result, after all is over, and you digest your notes

and collect your confused thoughts, will be what I

said — you will have puzzled your brain with a

multitude of words and got no clear idea of

Psychology. For they confuse the intellectual

experiences of the human brain with the other and

totally different experiences of the real Psyche !

And though they wrote ten times as many books,

since they would all be written upon this false

hypothesis, they would be no nearer the mark.

These Western psychologists have, we may say,

chopped man into minute shreds. There is not an

atom of him (and by him I mean their " him," not

the complete man), not a bone, muscle, nerve,

cell, or ganglion, that they have not dissected,

and fumbled over, and analysed. He has not a

feeling, an emotion, a cognition — not a single or

BASIS OF RELIGION. 133

complex intellectual process — that they have not
pulled about, weighed in the scales of logic, tested
with the resolvents of reason, ticketed, and laid
away in the psychological herbaria. But I defy
the whole of them, from Locke to Bastian, and
their whole army of followers, to show you one
single discovery that explains the psychic pheno-
mena whose occurrence has been observed in India
from the remotest ages, and the laws of whose
causation are explained in the Aryan Sastras.
The earnest seeker after Divine wisdom — the
true Theosophist — will turn away from western
" authorities " with a sense of weariness and de-
spair. To express it truthfully in one word, I must
call the soul-science of the Aristotelians of the now
dominant European school, subcuticular — skin-deep
— Psychology, the psychology of what lies inside
the human skin ! Their battles are all foiigJit tinder
the epidermis ; they understand the psychological
effect of external objects and phenomena upon the
human mind ; but a transcuticular man is to them
a scientific absurdity. Their man is acted upon
centripetally by Nature, but does not react centri-
fugally upon it. Asiatic philosophers recognize
man as comprising three groups or divisions of self-
hoodf Thtrc \s, first, Sthul Sharira — the physical
— the grosser, more material, objective and per-
ceptible ; second, Mayavi Rupa — the psychical, or
less perceptible, though still material ; tJiird, the
Atnia — the spiritual, or imperceptible and trans-
cendental. With a minuteness of analysis that

134 TIIEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

matches that of the European ps}xhologists, they
have again sub-divided these three groups into
sub-sections. But there is this inestimable advan-
tage on their side, that they prove their proposi-
tions experimentally. When they talk of a
" double," or Mayavi Riipa, or Stiks/una S/iarira,
they produce the thing itself: they sliozu tJiemsclvcs
to yoH ill their doubles. They will leave their
physical bodies {StJinl Sharira) in saiiiadJu, a state
of lethargy, at some distant place, force the
" double " out through its pores, and to that trans-
ferring their consciousness, with all its train of in-
tellectual and intuitional cognitions and feelings,
visit and make themselves visible to you. Fancy
Professor Bain, or Mr. Mill, or I\Ir. Spencer, under-
taking to argue on Psychology with a man in the
Jllayavi Riipa ! \Miere would be then all their
" quips and quilibets," their hard Greek and Latin
terms, their speculative h}-potheses ? Until that
moment, they would have thought themselves
authorities, but now the spectres of their books
would rise before them only in reproach. Their
antecedent mental state, as contrasted with their
present one, might be likened to that of a philo-
sopher who had speculated upon the possibility of
aerolites, but of a sudden had been hit hard by a
fragment of one tumbling on him from the sky.
Or we may take an example even more extreme.
Let us suppose that great man and thinker, Mr.
Spencer, sitting in his arm-chair at dusk in his library.
He has been writing the seventeenth chapter of

BASIS OF religion: 135

the second volume of his Principles of Psychology,
and has worked out the problem of the " Completed
Differentiation of Subject and Object" to his per-
fect satisfaction. He has satisfied himself that the
phase of emotion is stimulated by memories of past
experiences ; his hand has just traced these
words : — " Such components of consciousness,
pleasurable and painful, divisible into classes and
sub-classes, differ greatly from the components
thus far described ; being extremely vague, being
unlocalizable in space, and being but indefinitely
localizable in time " (op. cit. p. 467). He has de-
scribed to us the effect produced upon his state of
quiescence by hearing at his back a voice which he
recognizes as the voice of a friend: and, as he tells
us, " a wave of pleasurable feeling" upsets certain
antecedent sets of " vivid states," known to him as
the parts of his body, a feeling of muscular tension
is excited, " the emotion felt goes on presently to
initiate other muscular tensions, and after them
special sounds " — he speaks. And now, his chapter
finished and his pen thrown aside, he muses. A
wonderful phenomenon occurs — one that has hap-
pened to and been recorded by other great
scholars. Out of the reasoning, analysing, digestive
machine that the world, by visual, auditive, and
tactual observations, recognize, as I\Ir. Spencer,
oozes a whitish vapour which at first a cloud, con-
denses into a man. It is not only a man but that
very man, I\Ir. Spencer, his actual counterpart or
" double," his Mayavi-nipa. At last it is fully

136 THEOSOPIiy, THE SCIENTIFIC

formed, and in the same degree as the Hght of in-
telligence comes into its eyes, the same light
diminishes in the eyes of the musing philosopher.
The synthetic man, who but just now was building
air-castles with walls and foundations of words, has
divided into two parts, and the supreme intellectual
activity, as well as the supreme consciousness of
selfhood, is transferred to that part which is now
outside the skin that was the philosopher's tiltima
tJmle but just now. Can we not imagine what this
new-born self would say to the heavier body before
it ? Let it speak — " Here I am, and there you are,
O man ! I am ego — self ; you a machine. You
were my prison and jailer ; but see, I have escaped.
Henceforth I leave you, I enter you, at will. You
cannot detain me, you cannot ignore me, you sJiall
not silence me. I am the conscious entity, you a
vegetating mechanism of bones, and flesh and
nerves. How now about your emotions and will,
your grey-matter vesicles and your white-fibre
telegraph lines? Come, philosopher, rouse your-
self and debate with me. I would have you teach
me psychology. You write learnedly about sub-
ject and object. You have cleverly told your
readers that you cannot frame any psychological
conception without looking at internal co-existences
and sequences in their adjustments to external co-
existences and sequences {pp. cit., i. p. 133) : now
here we are — you there with your thinking machi-
nery inside, and I here, with my intellectual powers
outside, the physical ]\Ir. Spencer. Come, since

BASIS OF RELIGION. 137

you are fond of sequences, follow me^ if you can, to
the high plateau of the Himavat. There we shall
find men who hiozv Psychology instead of dreaming
about it ; men who are the successors of a thousand
generations of Aryan and Hindu sages, who, all
this time, have known what man is, and what his
powers are. Your school of metaphysics, not yet a
century old, is a thing of yesterday as compared
with the hoary science of the Rishis, the Arahats,
and the Medean Magi. In the pride of your re-
cently enfranchised intellects, you Western biolo-
gists and psychologists are trying to climb the sky
of occult science, wherein alone can be found the
truth about man and nature. Dull clod of earth,
component of ashes and gases and water, it was I
who illumined and inspired you ; I who gave you
such intuitions of Divine wisdom as you had, de-
spite the incubus of your vaunted reason ! I am
iJie Spencer, you but my covering. You are of the
ground ; I of the infinite and eternal essence of
Nature ! " What can you answer — M.A. of the
University of Calcutta — though you glitter with
medals, and are clothed in honours as with a gar-
ment ? Theory is one ' thing, fact another. Do
you cling to the theory of Germany or of Edinburgh,
when you can learn the fact at the asrainanis of
the Neilgherries and the Himalayas ?

Mr. John Stuart Mill {Dissertations and Discus-
sions^ iii. 97) makes a bold assertion. He says: —
" The sceptre of Psychology has decidedly returned

138 THEOSOPIIY, THE SCIENTIFIC

to this island " (Great Britain). Sceptre, indeed !
He talks as though it were some royal bauble, like
the Koh-i-noor, that could be looted and sent home
by a P. and O. Steamer ! The sceptre of Psycho-
logy is wielded on the Himavat, and no modern
empiric can clutch that rod of power, that staff of
authority. The mesmerist knows something about
Psychology, the modern spiritualist knows some-
thing, and so does the student of Psychometry.
Their knowledge is based upon experimental re-
searcli. They may not be learned anatomists,
morphologists, or biologists ; but, perhaps, they
have a better idea of the whole nature of man than
any of these. They have seen one from whom the.
conscious Ego had stepped out, and left the bod}^
not a dead thing, but living, W\^ Jiv-Atma, or life-
principle, being in it. The dull eye of the body, in
which no intelligence shines ; the listless apathy
and muscular relaxation ; the reduced temperature
of flesh ; the stopped or fluttering heart — all these
have convinced them that it is not the bodily me-
chanism that is the real man ; and this conviction
becomes a certainty when one has seen a body thus
inert, and, at the same time, seen the double of the
man moving about, with full consciousness, doing
intelligently the acts of a responsible being, and in
every way showing that the physical body is but a
habitable mechanism, of itself unspiritual, if not
altogether irresponsible. In the ordinary experi-
ments of Mesmerism, when the patient is thrown
into the state of ecstasis, one usually observes that

BASIS OF RELIGION. I39

the body has passed into a state whose physical
appearances closly resemble death. I have stood
by a person in this death-like lethargy, and found
there was neither pulse, animal heat, nor breathy
while, at the same time, the inner self of the ecstatic
was apparently soaring in the supernal spheres,
keenly alive to its rapturous experiences. In a
book of mine {People from the Other World), which
records my researches on the Eddy mediumistic
phenomena, I have described the case of a
Mrs. Compton, whom I saw in such a dead-
alive condition, after one of the most marvellous
seances on record. Well, this something that comes
out of the human body is, in the judgment of
occultists, the soul-principle — the responsible en-
tity, the part of a man which, whether inside or
outside the body, is that which acquires the
certainty of Divine wisdom. It is this that be-
comes the true Theosophist. And, as this is not
restricted by the hard limits of creed, race, pre-
judice, caste, and other external relations, which
hedge about the material or physical man, you
will observe that when this self is thoroughly freed
from the restrictive environments of society, it must
be free from our prejudices, hatreds and antipathies,
of one sort or another. This is the part of a man that
becomes an adept, and the very name of MaJiatnia
(great soul), that you have called it by for countless
generations, shows how well this has been under-
stood in India. When the Yogi practises dharana,
dhyan, and samadhi';^ it is for the purpose of getting

*■ Three stages of self-induced ecstasy and trance.

I40 TIIEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

himself — that is his real self — disentans^led from
the illusions of the bodily senses, which continually
cheat us as to what is real and what unreal. He
strives to evolve this astral self, and to purify that to
the nearest possible approximation of absolute
spirit. There are four stages of Yoga. In the first,
the Yogi begins to learn the first forms of Yoga^
and to fight his battle with the animal nature. In
the next, having learnt the forms, he advances
towards perfect knowledge. In the third, the
advance continues, and he overcomes all the
primary and subtle forces — that is to say, he van-
quishes the nature spirits, or elementals, resident in
the four kingdoms of nature ; and neither fire can
burn, water drown, earth crush, nor poisonous air
suffocate, his bodily frame. He is no longer
dependent upon the limited powers of the five
senses for knowledge of surrounding Nature ; he
has developed a spiritual hearing that makes the
most distant and most hidden sounds audible,
a sight that sweeps the area of the whole
solar system, and penetrates the most solid bodies
along with the hypothetical ether of modern science;
he can make himself as buoyant as a thistle-down,
or as heavy as the giant rock ; he can subsist with-
out food for inconceivably long periods, and, if he
chooses, can arrest the ordinary course of nature, and
escape bodily death to an inconceivably protracted
age. Having learnt the laws of natural forces, the
causes of phenomena, and the sovereign capabilities
of the human will, he may make " miracles " his

BASIS OF RELIGION. 14T

playthings, and do wonders that would take the con-
ceit out of even a modern philosopher. He can walk
upon water, without even wetting the soles of his
feet ; or, sitting in dhyan, can, by inward concentra-
tion, so change the magnetic polarity of his body
that it will rise from the ground and be self-sus-
pended in the air. Or, if he throws himself into
the fourth and deepest state of abstraction, he
will then have so withdrawn the life-principle from
the outer to the inner surfaces of the body, that
you may tie him in a sack and bury him under-
ground for weeks together, and when dug up and
rubbed and handled in a certain way, he will
revive to perfect consciousness. Your distin-
guished and honoured countryman. Dr. Rajend-
ralala Mittra, tells me that when a boy, he
saw the Sadhu (ascetic), whom some wood-choppers
found in the Sunderbunds jungle, and brought up
to Calcutta. He was found sitting, like a stiffened
corpse, with his legs twisted through the roots of a
tree. At Calcutta he unhappily fell into the hands
of two fools, whose tipsy folly — as I am told, though
I speak under correction^made them practically
his murderers. Not able to arouse him by shout-
ing, pushing, and beating, they put fire into his
hand, and plunged him into deep water in the
Ganges with a rope about his neck, as though he
were a ship's anchor, and twice kept him there
all night. They pried his tetanous jaws apart,
put beef into his mouth, and poured brandy
down his throat. Finally to prove their own

142 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

shamelessness, and to make their memory hateful for
ever, this Hindu Rajah and this Enghshman set
upon the poor saint whose emaciated body had
been left by him, as he thought, in the safe solitude
of the jungle, where tigers and serpents would not
harm him, while his soul went out in search of
Divine truth, these cruel, impious beasts set
upon him an abandoned creature of the other
sex to pollute him with her unholy touch ! Oh I
shame upon such specimens of humanity ! By
their cruel violence they finally awoke the
Sadhu from his lethargy, and his first utterance
was, not a curse upon his tormentors, not a burst
of indignant invective, but a plaintive and reproach-
ful cry, " O why, sirs, did you disturb me ; I had
done you no harm ? " Shortly after he died from
the effects of the food-poison they had forced into
him.

This happened some forty years ago. But do you
suppose Calcutta is any better now, or a safer place
for a real Sadhu to trust himself in ? I think not ;
and, in my opinion, if any one of }'ou should want
to find any better type of Yogi than the painted
impostors who perambulate your streets, you will
have to go far away from the city gates in search of
him.

At Lahore I met the son of a native gentleman,
still residing in a neighbouring place, who was an
eye-witness to the burial of a Sad/m, in the presence
of Maharajah Runjit Singh — a case that has be-
come historical. The particulars are given by Sir

BASIS OF RELIGION, 143

Claude Wade, the Political Resident, in his Camp
and Court of Riinjit Singh, and by Dr. MacGregor,
then Residency Surgeon, in his History of the Sikh
War. This Sadhn was buried alive for forty days, a
perpetual guard being kept, night and day, over the
spot. The English officials saw him buried and
also exhumed, and Dr. MacGregor gives a profes-
sional diagnosis of the case. When uncovered, the
man's body was shrunken and dried like a stick of
wood ; the tongue, which at the burial had been
turned back into the throat, had become like a
piece of horn ; and eyes, ears, and every other
orifice of the body, had been stopped with plugs of
ghee (clarified butter). Upon returning to his
external consciousness, the Sadhn told them that
he had been enjoying the blissful society of Yogis
and saints, and that if the Maharajah wished it, he
was quite ready to be buried over again.

There is — to say nothing of the Aryan and post-
Aryan Sastras, which, as you know, are full of such
things — a whole literature of Mysticism among the
European nations, and the annals of the Christian
Church teem with testimonies of ecstatics and
visionaries who, escaping from the body while alive,
have penetrated the inner world and seen divine
things. No one can read the mystical literature of
the Christian and other churches without beinor
struck with the idea that the visions of an uninitiated
seer are invariably mixed up with his own indivi-
duality. His subjective prejudices and preconcep-
tions give objective colour and shape to the objects

144 THEOSOPHY, 7 HE SCIENTIFIC

he encounters in his supra-physical life. The
Christian sees the Heaven of his Apocalypse, or his
Milton ; the Parsi, the Chinvat Bridge of Souls
guarded by the dread Maiden and her dogs ; the
Mussulman, the Gardens of the Blessed, with their
houris and never-ending delights. Swedenborg,
the Swedish seer, who developed his clairvoyance
when past the middle age, and after he had
devoted many years to scientific pursuits and
religious thought, saw a system of correspondences
which explained and illuminated, as he imagined,
the dead-letter of the Bible, of whose divine
authority he was already convinced. The visions
of my almost life-long friend, Andrew Jackson
Davis, have a similarly subjective character.

In all these cases, the seer has not passed out of
the circle of illusion, he has not yet come into the
fourth stage of Yoga, as defined by Patanjali. In
this fourth stage " the Yogi, loses all personality
and all consciousness of separate existence ; all the
operations of intellect become extinct, and spirit
alone remains." The Moksha of the Hindu is this
pure transcendental state indefinitely prolonged —
an existence in which all the causes of sorrow beine
absent, there can be no sorrow ; and the causes of
illusions being left behind, there can be no illusion
but the absolute truth is known in its unveiled
splendour. The Theosophist is a man who, what-
ever be his race, creed, or condition, aspires to
reach this height of wisdom and beatitude by self-
development ; and, therefore, you will see that in a

8AS/S OF RELIGION. 145

Theosophlcal Society like that we have founded —
and which we hope many of you will join — to have
one creed for our members to subscribe to, or one
form of prayer for them to adopt, or an}^ rules that
would interfere with their individual relations to
caste, or any other social and external environment
not actually antipathetic to Theosophical research,
would be impossible. You will also infer that, de-
spite the false statements or ignorant misconceptions
of many of our critics, we are not preaching a new
religion, or founding a new sect, or a new school
of philosophy or occult science. The Hindu
Sastras, the Buddhist Gathas, and the Zoroastrian
Desatir, contain every essential idea that we have
ever propounded, and our constant theme, these
past seven years, has been that of my present dis-
course, to wit, that Theosophy is the scientific and
the only firm basis of religion. We deny that
there is the slisj-htest conflict between true reliG^ion
and true science. We deny that any religion can
be true that does not rest upon scientific lines, and
we affirm that the outcome of scientific research
will be to set religion upon such an eternal founda-
tion, by breaking down the thick mystery of matter
and tracing force up into that everlasting and im-
mutable principle, called Motion by some. Spirit
by some, and Farabrahnta by the Vedantists.
Theosophical research, therefore, is the prop
and stay both of religion and science ; and by
ignoring all those causes which keep men apart,
and arm brother against brother, it is a promoter of

146 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

peace and harmony among men — in short, of Uni-
versal Brotherhood.

A great noise has ahvays been made about
certain striking phenomena which have occurred,
not only in the presence of the mystics and saints
of different religious sects above mentioned, but
also in connexion with the Thcosophical Society.
Minds, empty of healthy philosophical thought,
hanker after the marvellous. Many such have
joined our Society in the hope of seeing wonders,
and even of obtaining siddhis (powers), without
the usual training. Such are always, of neces-
sity, foredoomed to disappointment. There is
no royal road to Geometry. The Occult Science
may be learnt by different methods, and by any
one who can find a teacher, provided he has the
necessary psycho-physiological qualifications in him-
self. For this department of research does exact
very peculiar aptitudes. Can you learn law,
medicine, theology, chemistry, astronomy, or any
other science embraced in the college curriciiliLni,
without the special mental capacities that each
demands ? You know that to be impossible ;
and that even where the mental capacity is
not wanting, it takes time, patience and close
thought and application, to master your sub-
ject. There is not a professor, however emi-
nent, who does not continue a student of his
specialty to the very day of his death. Come,
then, foolish man, do you imagine that Theo-
sophy, this science of sciences, which unlocks for

BASIS OF RELIGION. 147

you the corridors of nature and ushers you Into
the blazing splendour of absolute Truth, is less
difficult than any of these pettier branches of
knowledge? Do you think that in a few weeks, or
months or years, you can pierce the veils of the
mysteries, while you are keeping on in your round
of worldly occupations, indulging your animal plea-
sures,cow^eringbeforeyoursocIal prejudices, and wrap-
ping your nobler self in the tainted body of Ignoble
desires ? The mere seeing of phenomena does no
good except to a mind which has already obtained
a thorough understanding of philosophy. This the
Yogi knows so well that he does not allow himself
to be diverted by them, even when produced by
himself, from his ultimate object of reaching the
fourth stage of Yoga. Patanjali says that even in
the third stage the Yogi Is liable to be overcome ;
and even in the last, which is sub-divided into seven
stages, he is not wholly safe from the " local gods,"
nor will be so till he has advanced beyond the fifth
of these seven. In the course of training, adopted
among certain mystics of Tibet, there are seven
stages of an ascending series, and each of these is
sub-divided into nine sub-stages. But whatever
the training, there Is the same object — emancipation
from Illusion and attainment of Theosophical know-
ledge. The untrained seers and religious ecstatics
we have noticed above, as having visions of a
partially subjective character, are all beneath the
fourth stage of Yoga. Their delusions result from
their lack of training. They see a spiritual light

148 THE OS 0 PHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

but through a smoky glass: Patanjali's methods
having been unknown to them, they have not de-
veloped their psychic powers by dharana and d/iyan,
that is, by " restraint of the mind," and " spiritual
meditation." Hence, their actual psychic percep-
tions are mixed up with their intellectual pre-con-
ceptions ; as the Scripure has it — they " see through
a glass darkly."

So we arrive at this point at last. If Psychology
is a science, — and Psychology includes the learning
of divine wisdom — then this search after religious
truth is the scientific basis of religion. Theosophy,
therefore, is the scientific basis of religion, for this
research is Theosophy. I think this is plain enough,
and I cannot see how any reasonable man, of what-
ever creed or sect, could put himself in antagonism to
us. If his sect or his bigotry is more precious to him
than the learning of the truth, of course we need
not areue with him. He could not understand us,
or, if he could, he would not admit it. Perhaps, in
his petulant dissatisfaction, he might even accuse
us of falsehood. One of these sect-leaders said,
the other day, in a Calcutta paper, that the study
of occultism and spiritualism only pandered to
" vain curiosity ; " that " men will not believe in
God and immortality, but they will believe in any
amount of spirit-rapping and occultism." I could
not offer you a better example of the spirit just
described — a spirit which would have us put aside
science and investigation of natural law, and
blindly take on faith what any would-be leader

BASJS OF RELIGION. 149

chooses to tell us. '' The more " — says this gentle-
man, himself an avowed religious teacher, — " a man
is found to disbelieve in the natural and legitimate
objects of faith, the more inclined he is to put his
trust in all manner of magic, witchcraft, and
spiritualism." What is the use of arguing with a
mind like that ? The little world of illusion in
which it lives is quite enough to satisfy its every
desire ; if it thinks it can find emancipation in it, let
it try. Of one thing such people are most certainly
ignorant, and that is of the spirit of the nineteentJi
century. The day of blind faith has gone by,
never, I hope, to return. If we are to have any re-
ligion— and every man of moral feeling longs for
some religious convictions — it must be one that is
in reconciliation with science and natural law. We
are no longer inclined to catch up our religions,
as though they were made of glass, and run
for shelter behind the rampart of " faith," every
time a Darwin or a Spencer throws a stone at
them. The men who desire to prohibit our look-
ing into the mysterious operations of Nature, are
the lineal descendants of the theological doctors of
Galileo's time. Some of these professors of Pisa
and Padua behaved so absurdly about this theory
of the heliocentric system that he has held them
up to an immortality of ridicule in a letter to
Kepler. " Oh ! my dear Kepler," he writes, " how
I wish we could have a hearty laugh together.
Here at Padua, is the principal professor of
philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently

ISO THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

invited to look at the moon and planets through
my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do.
Why are you not here ? What shouts of laughter
we should have at this glorious folly, and to hear
the philosopher at Pisa labouring before the Grand
Duke with logical arguments as if, with magic in-
cantations, to draw the new planets out of the
sky ! " Dr. James Esdaile, from the Preface to
whose work on Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance ,
I copy this quotation, is the Residency Surgeon,
who (under the patronage of Lord Dalhousie, then
Governor-General of India), established a Mesmeric
Hospital here at Calcutta, in 1846, at which
were performed painlessly some hundreds of sur-
gical operations upon mesmerised patients. His
noble devotion to truth and purely philanthropic
labours provoked the enmity and spite of his profes-
sional colleagues. They behaved towards him with
the same vindictive malice as some editors,
preachers, and laymen have shown to the Theoso-
phical Society. But he kept on with his work, despite
all obstacles, until the use of mesmeric anesthesia was
superseded by the application of chloroform to
surgery. Dr. Esdaile lived down opposition, and
was enabled to say in 1852, as the result of per-
sonal experience, that " like the camomile plant.
Mesmerism only flourishes the more for being
trodden upon." Theosophy seems to enjoy the
same vital elasticity, for we have just seen that
the unceasing ardent opposition of the missionaries
from my own'countr\%instead of crushing it (as their

BASIS OF religion: 151

party hoped), has done it a world of good. A
Christian himself, and without a trace of infidelity
in his opinions, Dr. Esdaile scouts the idea of the
study of Mesmerism promoting atJicisni; and,
though he gives no sign of knowing the connexion
of his idea with Vedantism or Yoga, he says
that by this research the life of man '' will pro-
bably be found to be only a modification of the
vital agent which pervades the Universe." Thence,
he says, we may "come to understand the astound-
ing sympathies and affinities sometimes developed
between the organic and inorganic world, and be
led to suspect the possibility of the finite mind of
man passing for a time into relation with the in-
finite, and thereby receiving impressions otherwise
than by the senses which regulate and circumscribe
our knowledge of surrounding nature in our
normal state of existence." These arc the wise
words of a true philosopher, and I may add, a true
Christian, in the better sense of the word. Mes-
merism— a modern European discovery of an old
Asiatic science — is the key to the mystical phenomena,
of the Hindu Sastras. Young gentleman of the
University, remember this, and withhold }'our flip-
pant scepticism about your ancestral faith until at
least you have mastered this subject. Yes, in
Mesmerism is balm for the heart of the searcher
after the hidden truth of Aryan philosophy.

Look, if you please, at this engraving. It is from
a little work published two years ago at Lahore bv
Sabhapathy Swami. It represents the system of

152 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

psychic development, by Raj Yoga. Here is traced
a series of lines and circles upon the naked body of
a man sitting in the posture of Padmdsan^ and
practising Yoga. The triple line passes down the
front of the head and body, making the circles at
certain points — viz.^ over the vomer, or nasal cavity,
the mouth, the root of the throat, the heart, the
umbilicus and the spleen. The artist, to bring
the whole system into one view, traces for us the
parts of the line and circles that would be out of
sight, such as that over the lower end of the spinal
column, the line up the spine, and over the cere-
bellum and cerebrum, until it unites with the front
line. This is the line travelled by the will of
the Yogi in his process of psychic development.
He, as it were, visits each of the centres of vital
force in turn, and subjugates them to dependence
upon the will. The circles are the ckakras, or cen-
tres of forces, and when he has traversed the en-
tire circuit of his corporeal kingdom, he will have
perfectly evolved his inner self — disengaged it
from its natural state of commixture with the
outer shell, or physical self His next step is to
project this "double" outside the body, trans-
ferring to it his complete consciousness, and then,
having passed the threshold of his carnal prison-
house, into the world of psychic freedom, his
powers of sight, hearing, and other senses are
indefinitely increased, and his movements no
longer trammelled by the obstacles which impede
those of the external man. Do not understand

BASIS OF religion; 153

me as saying that this is the only method of
psychic evokition ; there are others than PatanjaH's,
and some better ones. The highest form of Yoga
— to employ that as a generic term — is one by
which there is rather a moral than a physical or
semiphysical training and evolution, and, as I con-
ceive, by this process the ascetic sooner and more
perfectly breaks through the wall of Maya, or illu-
sion, than he can by Patanjali's methods.

Perhaps, some physiologists in this audience may
feel inclined to deny that consciousness can be
thus transferred from the sensorium in the brain
to other parts of the body. Should such be here,
I will ask them to refer to the Zoist, to Professor
Weinholt's Lecture on Somnambidism, to the
Breslau Medical Collections, to Dr. Bertrand's
Treatise on Soninanibnlism, to Dr. Petetin's
Electricity Animale, to the Proceedings of the
Philosophical Society of Lausanne, to the Re-
port of Signori Corini, Visconti and Mazzacorati,
of a case in the Hospital della Vita at Bologna, to
Dr. Esdaile's and Professor William Gregory's
works. In these, and in scores of others I might
mention, it will be seen that in certain morbid states
• of the nervous system, especially catalepsy and
hysteria, the senses of hearing, sight, taste and touch
are localized at the pit of the stomach, the finger-tips,
the soles of the feet and the back of the head. I
do not claim any- special weight for my own tes-
timony, but still, as one always likes to have parole
evidence when possible, I may tell you that I have

154 THEOSOPin, THE SClENflFIC

seen examples of some of those psycho-physiologi-
cal phenomena. Not to dwell upon othrrs,* I will
mention but a single case— that of an American girl
of ten years old, the daughter of a friend of mine.
This charming little child would, in her waking state,
read any book,print or writing,! heldagainst theback
of her head. The faculty, which she accidentally
discovered, left her after a couple of years, without
apparent cause. Now, if Nature thus spontaneously
offers us examples of the higher mesmeric and
other psychic phenomena, their possibility is by
Nature herself proven. The only remaining question
is whether the Yogi or other mystic can, by intense
concentration of his will upon a certain centre of"
vital activity, voluntarily excite an identical condi-
tion. And that he can, I know to a certainty.

I have spoken of Baron von Reichenbach's mas-
terly work : here it is. I affirm that this record of
five years' experiments of an Austrian chemist of
the first eminence contains in itself a master-key
to Aryan psychological phenomena. That Reich-
enbach probably never read a single Sastra, or
o-ave himself one moment's concern about Patan-
jali, does not in the least detract from the value of
his researches. You see the silvery nimbus or .
£loud about the head of the Yogi in Sabhapathy
Swami's book, and here I show you pictures of the

* A year later, upon revisiting Calcutta, I had the good fortune
to witness a striking case of the kind. A young Hindu married
lady, suffering from hysteria, was able to read books and distinguish
colours when held to her finger-tips, the little toe and the elbow, and
to hear at the umbilicus.

BASIS OF RELIGION, 155

Hindu Gods, Siva and Krishna, with their Parvatis,
Radhas, and Gopis. Around the head of each is
the same aureole. These are not sketched after the
conceptions of some modern artist ; they represent
the popular idea of hundreds and thousands of
years ago. And now I show you a similar picture,
by a Christian artist, of a Christian saint — where the
same glory, and of a transcendent brightness, is de-
picted. In Buddhist temples the image of the recum-
bent Buddha lying in the divine ecstasisjias a flam-
ing aureole of this kind about the head and body ;
the lines of colour not standing out like spikes, but
wavy, like the coruscating splendours of the auroras
of the North and South Poles. In the Bactrian
rock-cut image of Zoroaster, which is assumed to
give, perhaps, the nearest idea of a personal like-
ness of that splendid seer, the same idea of a glory
about the head is carried out.^"

Now whence did the Hindu, the Buddhist, the
Parsi, and the Christian, get this impression that the
head of a spiritual leader must radiate lights ?
Shall I surprise you vvhen I say that we may find
tlie answer in this book of Reichcnbach ? Look
at this illustration. This figure B represents the
actual luminous appearance of the human head, as
seen by one of a class of persons of acute nervous
sensitiveness with whose help the author made his

* Later a Buddhist monk presented me with a vejy curious small
silver figure of Lord Buddha in the erect position, with the aureole re-
presented as surrounding him from head to foot. And with it is,
moreover, an identical duplicate, which represents the projected
Double or Phantasm of that trreat teacher.

156 THEOSOPIIY, THE SCIENTIFIC

researches. Repeated experiments with over fifty
such subjects demonstrated that the human system,
in common with every animate and inanimate
natural object, and with the whole starry heavens,
is pervaded with a subtle aura, or, if you please,
imponderable fluid, wdiich resembles magnetism
and electricity in certain respects, and yet is analo-
cfous wath neither. He called it Od, or Odyle.
This aura, while radiating in a faint mist from all
parts of the body, is peculiarly bright about the
head. These two spots of light are the eyes, and
this third one is the mouth. Now this picture
represents the aura of a young married lady ; and
we have only to imagine to ourselves — as we may
from all the analogies of nature — how this aura
would be intensified by enormous concentration of
the wall, to comprehend readily the intuition which
first suggested the artistic conception of the aureole.
In fact, we find that Reichenbach was anticipated
by the Aryans in the knowledge of the Odic aura."^
But all the same, it should be remembered that we
mieht never have understood what the nimbus about
Krishna means, but for this Vienna chemist.

I must not pass on towai'ds my conclusion
before showing you that we can get some instruc-
tion from Reichenbach upon certain Brahminical
customs prescribed by the Sastras, but which I
have not yet found even one Brahmin to explain.

* In the Atharva Veda, a work of enormous antiquity, mention is
made of the existence of a sensitive aura, of a span's widtli, about
the human body.

BASIS OF RELIGION-. 157 •

You have had two kinds of Brahminlcal customs
handed down, one primitive and essential, the other
secondary and non-essential ; customs and practices
no doubt invented by cunning priests to save pro-
fitable vested rights, when the" caste had begun to
lose its original spirituality. When Brahmins sit
to eat, every man is isolated from his neighbours
at the feast. He sits in the centre of a square
traced upon the floor, grandsire, father and son,
brother and uncle, avoiding contact with each other
quite as scrupulously as though they were of
different castes. If I should handle a Brahmin's
brass platter, his lotah or other vessel for food or
drink, neither he nor any of his caste would touch
it, miuch less eat or drink from it, until it had been
passed through fire : if the utensil were of clay, it
must be broken. Why is this ? That no affront
is meant by avoidance of contact is shown in the
careful isolation of members of the same family
from each other. The explanation, I submit, is
that every Brahmin was supposed to be an indi-
vidual evolution of psychic force, apart from all
consideration of fam.ily relationship ; if one touched
the other at this particular time, when the vital
force was actively centred upon the process of
digestion, the psychic force was liable to be drawn
off, as a Leyden jar charged with electricity is dis-
charged by touching it with your hand. The
Brahmin of old was an initiate, and his evolved
psychic power was employed in the agnihotra and
other ceremonies. The case of the touching of the

1-58 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

eating or drinking vessel, or the mat or clothing
of a Brahmin by one of another caste, of inferior
psychic development, or the stepping of such a
person upon the ground, within a certain prescribed
distance from the sacrificial spot, bear upon this
question. In this same plate of Reichen-
bach's, the figure F represents the aura, streaming
from the points of the human hand. Every
human being has such an aura, and the aura
is peculiar to himself or herself, as to quality
and volume. Now the aura of a Brahmin of the
ancient times was purified and intensified by a
peculiar course of religious training — let us say
psychic training ; and if it should be mixed with
the aura of a less pure, less spiritualized person, its
strength would of necessity be lessened, its quality
adulterated. Reichenbach tells us that the Odic
emanation is conductible by metals, more slowly
than electricity, but more rapidly than heat, and that
pottery and other clay vessels absorb and retain it
for a long while. Heat he found to enormously
increase quantitatively the flow of Odyle through a
metal conductor. The Brahmin, then, in submit-
ting his odylically-tainted metallic vessel to the fire,
is but experimentally carrying out the theory
of Reichenbach. I will not, however, enlarge
upon a branch of my subject which might well be
made the theme of a series of lectures. The
gathering obscurity of the twilight warns me to be
as brief as thebreadthof our theme and its novelty to
you permit, as also does the fear that I may have

BASIS OF RELIGION. i59

already overtaxed your patience. I iiiiist avail
myself of the few remaining minutes at my dis-
posal to say something more specific about the
Theosophical Society.

The Society has no endowment, its current
expenses being met, as far as practicable, out of an
Initiation Fee often rupees. The deficiency is made
good by Madame Blavatsky and myself, out of our
private resources. Our printed rules define the
objects of our organization to be : —

I. — To form the nucleus of a Universal
Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of
race, creed, or colour.

2. — To promote the study of Aryan and
other Eastern literature, religions, and sciences, and
vindicate its importance.

3. — To investigate the hidden mysteries of
nature and the psychical powers in man.

I have touched upon these sufficiently, I hope, to
made it clear that our Society has not one feature
of sectarianism in it ; that it regards religion as a
personal matter ; that its founders do not believe
that any actual knowledge can be obtained of
Divine things except through psychical develop-
ment ; that it has not a shadow of political char-
acter ; that it is neither a propaganda nor a special
antagonist of any particular faith ; that its influence
must be in the direction of piety, personal purifica-
tion, unselfishness, and patriotism, in the noblest
sense of that much abused word. Finally, you
must infer that instead of undervaluing Western

i6o THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

culture and scientific research, we have a thorough
appreciation of the importance of both.

The question between you and myself at this
present moment is whether you will take an active
practical interest in our work, and help us to make
Bengal what it ought to be, in virtue of its tradi-
tions and its world-wide reputation for intellectual,
metaphysical, and scientific capacity, the centre of
a Theosophic revival that shall thrill all India
with the promise of a new spiritual era. I am not
asking you to draw the rusty sword of Luxman
Sen from its scabbard and deluge your land in
blood. It is not war that India wants, but peace, — ■
peace todevelop her prostrate industries; peace to im-
prove her agriculture, and to re-adjust her population
to her territory, drawing away the surplus where it
is overcrowding the land, and settling it in districts
where labour can find vacant land and employment ;
peace to remove all obstructive barriers, and knit
the races of the Peninsula into a brotherly and
reciprocally profitable union ; peace to foster the
love of art, which was once so high that the land
is filled with monuments which excite the world's
wonder ; peace to found Sanskrit schools wherever
they flourished in the olden time, so that once more
the treasures of Indian literature may be known,
and this present foul reproach of ignorance of our
Sastras may be removed ; and peace, that there
may be born a generation of unselfish patriots, in
place of the present one, which I need not describe :
a generation which will esteem it the highest

BASIS OF RELIGION. i6i

happiness, as well as the highest honour, to forget
self, and to work for the public good. Ay, " peace
hath its victories as well as war." I have not come
here to ask you to give us money, or to erect great
temples of Theosophy, to stand as laughing-stocks
of human vanity for the warning of future genera-
tions. I am not asking you to overturn the altars of
your faith to make room for the hybrid erections of
ignorant iconoclasts. I do not ask you to trample
under the feet of pert criticism the sacred literature
of your forefathers, and to substitute for the majestic
rhythm and profound thought of its slokas, the
crude rhapsodies of modern ideologists. I am not
asking the educated among you to put aside the
science your masters of the College have taught
you, nor to tear up the diplomas which are the certi-
ficates of your industry and culture. I am not come
to tear down the purdahs behind which the lustful
violence of your conquerors obliged you to hide
your beloved mothers and sisters, wives and
daughters. I am quite content to leave time to work
its own changes, and to the increasing good sense
of the Hindus the cure of all evils and the extirpa-
tion of all abuses.

But I stand here as the unworthy mouthpiece of
ancient India, to speak a word of appeal on her
behalf into the ears of the present generation.
Since science has proved that your race and mine
boast a common parentage, and that the streams of
Aryan and European civilization flowed from a
single fount, I speak by right of heritage for the

l62 THEOSOPHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

claims of Aryan philosophy. If you will it, we
may together work in fraternal concord, and to-
gether snatch from the oblivion of neglect the
science of Divine Truth, the Wisdom-Religion of
archaic times. We care not what may be the name
of your Samaj ; if you are working for India, we
will work with you.

The Mahimnastava, a hymn to Siva, daily
chanted by the Brahmins (for an English transla-
tion of which I am indebted to my venerable friend,
Babu Rajnarain Bose), expresses a sentiment which
I should like every modern Hindu to take to heart.
It mirrors the spirit of our Society, and is as
follows : —

" As the Ocean is the goal of all rivers, so Thou art the ultimate
goal of different paths, straight or devious, which men follow,
according to their different tastes and inclinations."

I am asked how we shall set about this task,
how to learn Occultism without teachers, and
without text-books that we can read. For just
such emergencies as these men always arise : we
must create the teachers and compile the books.
Meanwhile we must turn to a quarter where we
need never seek in vain. There is a teacher within
us who waits for us to unlock his prison-doors and
set him free. That teacher is our veritable Ego,
our Inner Self We can reach him by holy lives,
abstract meditations, and the evolution of the
powers of will. More than one road will lead us to
the Adytum wherein he dwells ; for adeptship is of
no one creed, and is the life of all faiths. Look at

BASIS OF RELIGION, 163

the prescribed methods of training under different
systems, and you will find that while they differ as to
formulas, they resemble each other in essentials.
First, the man must be pure — in body, mind and
aspiration. Second, the place chosen must be pure—
in atmosphere and surroundings. It must also be
quiet and safe. Third, the diet must be simple,
digestible, and taken in as moderate quantities as
the preservation of bodily health permits. The
would-be adept must have physical stamina, for
concentration makes a great drain upon vital force
And the experience of mediums shows that
mediumship, except in the highest form of mental
impressibility, is usually concomitant with a scrofu-
lous or phthisical taint in the blood. Fourth, the
motive must be a noble and unselfish desire for
Divine wisdom ; and, lastly, the practice must be
gradual and cumulative. Given these, and one
may be sure of attaining his end — that of develop-
ing into an adept Theosophist.

My task is finished, my word spoken. It remains
with you to crown our effort with practical success,
or to suffer my voice to pass profitlessly, in widen-
ing ripples of sound, out into the ocean of air.
Remember only that what can be done to-day
may be impossible tomorrow. Neglect has
brought Hinduism to its present pass. Neglect
has reduced the Brahmin Pundits already to a con-
dition little better than that of half-starvation or
genteel beggary. If they would not expose them-
selves to the rude rebuffs of the bazaar, and jostle

i64 THEOSOFHY, THE SCIENTIFIC

with a crowd of painted impostors, who masquerade
as Sadhtis to cheat the charitable, and secretly give
loose rein to their bestial natures — they must seek
Government employment, and convert themselves
into clerical automata. Their once famous schools
are now only a memory, and their once grand debates
on philosophy at the courts of kings survive only
in legendary story. A wave of practicalism is
sweeping away the last vestiges of Hindu origin-
ality, engulfing the fairest relics of Aryan greatness,
as the muddy overflow from the crater Kilauea
swallows up the trees and villages upon its slopes.
Nesflect and sottish laziness have done all this. A
few years — or perhaps a few generations more — and
the foreign boot will be on every Hindu foot, the
foreign brandy-bottle in every Hindu hand, and what
is a thousand times worse, the foreign heart will be
beating in every Hindu body, for love of country
and religion will have all died out. Are you pre-
pared to face this doom ? Does there yet burn in
any corner of your breast a spark of that noble pride
and self-respect that made the Aryan man ennoble
by his personal virtues the Aryan name? If you
would arrest the tide of national demoralization
that is rushing through the brandy-shop and the
opium-den, you must set up again the old moral
standards, and teach your children to live up to
them. You can save your nationality and regain your
spiritual-mindedness, or you can impiously see them
swept, by the torrent of pretended " Progress," into
the Kala Pani of commercial expediency. Some

BASIS OF RELIGION. 165

of your best men thought India had already
reached that stage, for they wrote me, two years
ago, from Bengal, that we Theosophists had come
too late. India was dead, and hope extinguished.
But I said No, and I say so now ; a nation is never
dead while one single patriot son survives. For he
alone, by an extraordinary moral grandeur and
spiritual insight, may re-infuse the vanished life
into the decrepit frame, and laying his holy hand
upon his mother's heart, cause it to beat again.
No, Aryavarta, queen-mother of nations, is not
dead. Her altar-fires burn feebler every year, and
the recollection of her spiritual triumphs has become
a tradition of a by-gone time. Yet it is not too
late for her children to labour for her, and sacrifice
themselves for her dear sake.

The sacrifice will not be profitless, the labour not
in vain. Remember and take heart from what an
English poet has written : —

*' Dejected India, lift thy downcast eyes,

And mark the hour whose steadfast steps for thee
From Time's press'd ranks brings on the Jubilee."

THEOSOPHY: ITS FRIENDS AND

ENEMIES.*

Complying with the good custom of all societies
that are really working for the general good, though
the latter merit is denied us by some, we now,
a third time, come before the Bombay public
to give an official account of ourselves. Our
anniversary meeting should have been held last
November, and would, but that we were then far
away in the Punjab, and did not return to Bombay
until the last day of the old year. Having thus
unavoidably missed the usual time, we thought
it best to wait until we could celebrate the anniver-
sary of the arrival of our party in India. That
event, so important to us — I wish I could add,
possibly to the country, as regards its future results
— occurred on Sunday, February i6th, 1879, and I
am here to tell you how it has fared with us during
the two years that have since passed. I will do my
best to ... .

" nothing extenuate, nor aught set down in malice."

We only ask that those who love and those who
hate us, will alike be governed by the same feeling
of moderation. For, to tell you the plain truth, we

* A Lecture delivered at the Framji Cowasji Institute, Bombay,

27th February, iS8i.

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 167

have suffered quite as much, if not more, from the
extravagant expectations and ideas of our friends,
as from the maUce and falsehood of our enemies.
The former have rushed to as great extremes in one
direction, as the latter have in another. We have
been kept quite as busy in recovering ground we ought
never to have lost, and should never have lost if
our sympathisers had been reasonable, as in defend-
ing ourselves and our cause from the plots and
assaults of those who wished for our defeat. I have
tried, in many public addresses, to define our exact
responsibility to the Indian nation. I have done
my best to show exactly what it had, and what it
had not, a right to demand of us. I have ex-
plained over and over again, what the Hindus had
themselves to do, if they really cared to snatch
their nationality from the gulf of perdition into
which it has been plunging headlong, these many
centuries. I have tried to make Young India see
that there can be no real moral reform that does
not come from their own united effort ; and that no
foreigner, though he love the conntry ever so much
and be ready to sacrifice ever so much for it, can
relieve her own sons of the smallest portion of that
duty. Many whom I see around me in this audience
heard my first address to the country, from this same
platform, on 23rd March, 1879. I ask these
to remember how earnestly I tried on that occasion
to impress this solemn conviction upon the native
mind. Among other things I said : — " If India is
to be regenerated, it must be by Hindus, who can

i6S THEOSOPHY,

rise above their castes and every other reactionary
influence, and give good example as well as good
advice. Useless to gather into Samajes, and talk
prettily of reform. Not of such stuff are the
saviours of nations made." Did you hear me putting
ourselves up as the would-be leaders of Hindu re-
generation, as exemplars of virtue or patterns
of v/isdom ? No, a thousand times no : I said
our chief and sole desire was to help India and her
people, " in any way practicable, however humble,*
without meddling with politics, into which, as
foreigners, we "had neither the right nor inclina-
tion to intrude." With the cry of one who sees
danger hovering over those he sympathises
with, and would have them make an effort to
save themselves, I said : — " Here is material for a
new school of Aryan philosophy which only waits
the moulding hand of a master. We cannot yet
hear his approaching footsteps, but he will come ; as
the man always does come when the hour of destiny
strikes. He will come, not as a disturber of the
peace, but as the expounder of principles, the in-
structor in philosophy. He will encourage study,
not inflame passion. He will scatter blessings, not
sorrow. So Zoroaster came, so Gautama, so Con-
fucius. O for a Hindu, great enough in soul, wise
enough in mind, sublime enough in courage, to pre-
pare the way for the coming of this needed Re-
generator ! O for one Indian of so grand a mould
that his appeals to his countrymen would fire every
heart with a noble emulation to revive the glories

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 169

of that by-gone time when India poured out her
people into the empty lap of the West, and gave
the arts and sciences, and even language itself, to
the outside world ! " And that I foresaw that the
work, even if begun at once, must take long to yield
the desired results, is shown in these further re-
marks : — " Do not imagine that I have the idle
notion that India can be reformed in a day. This
once enlightened, monotheistic and active people
have descended step by step, in the course of many
centuries, from the level of Aryan activity to that
of idolatrous lethargy and fatalism. It will be the
work not of years but of generations to re-ascend
the steps of national greatness. But there must be
a beginning. Those sons of Hindustan who are
disposed to act rather than preach, cannot com-
mence a day too soon. This hour the country
needs your help."

So, too, I may refer you to the address I de-
livered, on November 29th, at the celebration of
our fourth anniversary, when I again recurred to the
subject. "We do not ask you to be our followers,"
I said, "but our allies. Our ambition is not to be
considered leaders, or teachers ; not to make money,
or power or fame. Choose any man here, of either
of the old races represented, and show us that he
is the right man to lead in either branch of this
reformatory movement, and I will most gladly en-
list as a common soldier under him." But this idea
of the necessity for personal effort does not seem to
have as yet impressed itself upon the public mind.

170 THEOSOPH\,

Some would force us to accept without remonstrance
the imputation that we want to push ourselves into
the attitude of leaders, to ape the state of Alex-
ander, who — Dryden tells us, in St. Cecilia s Day —

"Assumes to nod,
Affects the god,
And seems to shake the spheres."

— and that if we do not at least attempt to lead, or
to exhibit all the qualities, intellectual and moral,
of the ideal leader, we must confess that we have
not made good our claims. But again, for the
twentieth time, I protest, and, in the presence of
this multitude, declare that the moral Regenerator
of Aryavarta will be no European, but must be a
son of the soil, and no one else ! It is only too
evident I say, too sadly so, that a vague notion has
gained wide currency that we, Theosophists, must
straightway bind up all the gaping wounds in the
body of this hapless India, while the Hindus look
passively on, or consent to be taken as derelict in
duty. " What efforts," asks a correspondent of the
editor of a Bombay native paper, " have until now
been made by this Society to alleviate the sufferings
of the Aryans, and how have they succeeded ? "
Does our questioner know the meaning of words ?
Did he, before penning those lines, ponder well
what relief of the sufferings of the Aryans involves,
and what our poor efforts could reasonably be ex-
pected to accomplish in that direction ? No, but
like every other man who has sat down to hale us
before the public, he dashed off the first smart

ITS FJ^IENDS AND ENEMIES. 171

phrase that came Into his mind, as one shuts his
eyes and fires his musket point-blank into a crowd.
I can say one thing in reply to this gentleman
which can be proved even upon European testi-
mony, let alone the abundant evidence natives can
furnish, and that is that we have made every
effort in the power of mortal men to interest the
paramount race in behalf of the Hindus, and to make
them respect Aryan philosophy and science. To
effect this result we have spared neither time,
trouble, nor the inconveniences and costs of travel.
We have also excited respect for Indian achieve-
ments and sympathy with Indian thought, in the
most distant countries. In ample proof of this, I
point you to the articles which have appeared in
those countries, many of which are preserved by us
in our scrap-books at Head Quarters.

But all this is nothing in the eyes of these
drowsy patriots ! " Here we are," substantially say
they who, perhaps, never sacrificed one pan-sitpari
for India, *' and here are the Aryans, twenty-four
crores strong. Here is Aryavarta, stripped to the
last rag, and in the last extremes of starvation.
Here are one-fifth of the people lying down hungry
every night, and rising hungry every morning.
Here are fifty millions of wretched human beings
fighting famine on a half acre of land each. Here
is ignorance holding a nation in chains, and super-
stition gnawing out the last remnants of hope in
their hearts. Here are hungry fathers breeding
children by lakhs only to starve ; farmers eating

172 THE OS 0 PHY,

the best of their seed grain and saving the worst ;
giving their land no fallow time for recuperation ;
burning their manure, because the wood is all cut
away; here are taxes multiplying, poverty increasing,
and an educated class thinking of Government alone
as their employer ; here are five hundred struggling
applicants for ten vacant places, at from Rs. 40 to
60 per month, advertised by the Bombay Telegraph
Department ; and here are liquor-shops, springing
up like mushrooms in every large town. Come,
Theosophists, banish our sufferings and we will not
call you impostors or adventurers any more." This
is no exaggeration, but the exact tone of nine-tenths
of the criticisms upon us with which the native press
has teemed, and of the public expectation. Do we
not know it ? Who should know it better than w^e
who get almost every day letters to this very effect
from the four corners of India? And yet how can we
utter one angry word in protest, when we know that
the cause of all this is in the wretchedness of a
people, enwrapped in such a blackness of despair that
they clutch at even the faintest promise of relief In
their awful dejection they have tried to cheat their
hearts into the belief that, perhaps, the hoped-for Re-
generator had come or was just coming from across
the ocean. Ay, and just after my first address was
made, a native paper said as much. But it is not
so, it is not so, I tell you. We can only sorrow at
our helplessness to give the succour so much
needed, and try to spur to a sense of their duty
those who alone could do something, if they only

ITS FIUEA'DS AND ENEMIES. 173

would. And in parenthesis let me remark that it
would be a good beginning if those who have said
the sharpest things about what the Theosophists
have not done, would, when next writing to the
papers, prove that they had themselves set us that
pattern of unselfish patriotism they would have us
imitate ! Talk is cheap, gentlemen, and the com-
modity is not scarce in India. If words could be
coined into rupees, our young reformers would long
ago have restored the splendour of the Aryan epoch,
and lodged every ryot in a marble bungalow. Yet
words are useful too, and very necessary to India
at this particular juncture. Words of warning, of
appeal, of encouragement ; glowing words that
shall burn through the thick crust of selfishness and
reach the very core of every patriot's heart. Have
you read the history of the world and not learnt
the mighty power of the right word spoken at the
right moment? Speak then, every man of you,
but also act ; speak and tell your countrymen that
the time for dreaming is past, the hour for action
has come. Let a great shout go up, like the voice
of thunder, until the Himalayas echo to the cry
from Cape Comorin, that if the nation is to be
saved, every one who can give the slightest help
must nozu give it. Even the British themselves,
with all their might and power, will be unable
to save the Indian people from starvation, per-
haps annihilation, unless India herself awaken
to activity and reform, and help them to save
her. You have gained knowledge, scatter it every-

174 THEOSOPHY,

where ; for it Is Ignorance that has cursed Arya-
varta, and this is the demon that has buried his
fangs in her fair throat. You remove your shoes
and reverently worship when you enter your temples
and, I tell you, you ought to do the same at every
school-house door. For, if India may be rescued,
it is only by the spread of education in the Temples
of Knowledge. When one shall see in your coun-
try what you can see in America and England — a
school open wherever there are children to be taught
— then, ay, then indeed, will the sufferings of the
Aryans be " alleviated," and India be prosperous
and happy once more. Do not trouble yourselves
about the Theosophists ; don't waste your time in
complaining that they have not accomplished the
miracles you expected of them : they will do what
little they can — you may count upon that ; and
they will never do any thing dishonourable, or that
has to be covered up. Set your own houses in
order ; live in private up to your public professions,
— that is all we, or any one else, could ask : be what
you pretend to be. If you are idol-haters in public
meetings, be so when your own family and caste
fellows are by too ; if you are orthodox at heart,
be manly enough to say so to the face of the whole
world. If you think Christianity the best religion,
and your reason is convinced, boldly proclaim it,
and take the consequences ; and if you think it the
worst, say so like men. If you expect your
neighbour to give in charity, or work for the
country's good, set him the example. We have

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 175

had enough of masks and hypocrisies, and a moral
coward every honest soul loathes. Cannot every
man in this assemblage put his hand upon one of
these two-faced talkers ? Are they not in the
orthodox sects, in the Arya Samaj, the Prarthana
Samaj, and the Theosophical Society — yes, even
in that, and not only hypocrites but traitors ? Do
you not, even while I speak, recall to mind how
the man with two faces pretends to be a reformer,
but is not ; to favour child widows' remarriage, and
yet casts the first stone at the one who puts into
practice his very sentiments, nay, will himself, if a
widower, marry a wife young enough to be his
grand-daughter's daughter ? Have you not heard
him abhor child-marriage, and yet know that he
had had no sound sleep until his own baby daughter
was pledged and bound to a boy husband ; or worse
yet, to a man older than himself ; seen him frown
upon the costly ceremonials of investiture with the
thread, marriage, first pregnancy, &c., and yet
beggar himself and his relatives in trying to vie
with his acquaintance in empty display? These
are the men of mere words, whose counsel no
one respects or wants, because they are hypo-
crites and poltroons. But he who preaches self-
denial and practises it; he who proves by his acts that
he means all he says, ah ! he is a man to listen to,
let his advice be ever so fanciful and impracticable.
For we feel that he at least is a conscientious man
and is acting up to his best light, even though
strength often fail him and he occasionally may

176 THEOSOPFIY,

fall out of the straight path. These are the kind
of men we try to draw into our Theosophical
Society. We never ask them what their creed is,
we do not care : they may worship the god they
see in fire or the sun ; or the divinity that for them
infuses the substance of a Sivaic Lingam and ani-
mates its ultimate atoms ; they may search for his
glory at Mecca or Jerusalem ; in the kabah or fire-
temple ; at Benares or L'hassa ; or in the ocean
depths or the morning dawn. Though they wash
their sins away in the Ganges or the Jordan : though
they pray standing or kneeling, with forms of
words or the soundless aspirations of the inmost
heart — we care not. They are sincere, and we hail
them as our brothers. They are searchers after
truth, and, in the degree of their spiritual
mindedness, Theosophists. What then is Theoso-
phy? you will ask. I reply that TJicosophia — " God-
like wisdom " — for us means "search after divine
knowledge," the term divine applying, as we see it,
to the divine nature of the abstract principle, not
to the quality of a Personal God. Many may even
be rejecting God as a being, be piicca atheists in
fact, and yet if they accept the existence of divine
or absolute wisdom and truth, and are honestly and
sincerely trying to find it out and live up to that
standard, they are philo-theosophs, lovers of God-
like or divine Wisdom and Truth ; the two words
being synonymous, for there can be no absolute
Truth without Wisdom, and absolute Wisdom is
absolute Truth. Our Society might have added to

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIt^S. m

the name " Thcosophical " that of " Philadelphian "
(from the two words pJiilos, loving, and adelphos,
brother), as it was always meant to be a society of
universal brotherhood and for promoting brotherly
love among all races — but there were several re-
ligious societies of that name already, as the Christ-
adelphians and the Philadelphians. Knowing but
of one really divine manifestation on earth —
Humanity as taken collectively, Humanity with its
god-like intellect, its latent promises and spiritual
hopes, hidden away under a thick crust of material-
ism and selfishness — we know of no better form of
worship, no higher cultus to the divine principle,
than that whose oblations are laid on the altar of
Humanity. With our hands upon that altar we
must all strive to call out these divine, deep, hidden
intuitions of mutual Help, Tolerance and Love.
By "divine " then I mean that which the common
intuition of mankind conceives to be the opposite
of all that is animal, material, brutish. The know-
ledge one gains by the help of the physical senses
is physical science. It is the orderly classification
of the objective phenomena of the visible world.
Theosophy, on the contrary, is the discovery of the
law and order of the inner world of force or spirit,
by the aid of another set of faculties that lie within
the human being. What creed the spiritual searcher
m.ay outwardly held to, matters as little as the
colour or shape of his turban or scarf; provided
only that he does not let the acid of his creed eat
out the precious substance of his nobler nature.

178 TIIEOSOPHY,

There have been true theosophists in every creed ;
true seers who have Hfted the secret veils of Nature
and penetrated her mysteries. It may astonish
you to hear me say that the most materiahst
scientists are theosophists— ay, Professors Huxley
and Tyndall, for instance, who have devoted their
whole lives to the search of truth in hidden principles,
in physical nature, and served humanity faithfully
and sincerely. This alone would make good my
proposition, even did we not know that mankind
are substantially the same the world over. Have
you ever read the Dabistan — that most instructive
report by Mohsan Fani, the learned Persian of the
seventeenth century, of his observations of the
various holy men who were his contemporaries ?
If not, do so, and you will find quoted the exultant
language of Jellal-Eddin Rumi, in which he de-
scribes the extinction of all human prejudices and
passions that occurs when the mystic has attained
emancipation. " O IMoslems ! what is to be done ?
I do not know myself; I am neither Jew, nor
Christian, nor Gheber, nor Moslem ; I am not from
the East nor from the West; nor from land nor
sea ; neither from the region of nature nor from
that of heaven ; not from Hind nor China ; not
from Bulgaria nor Irak ; nor from the towns of

Khorassan I know but him, Yahu! What

is the intent of this speech ? Say it, O Shams
Tabrizi ! The intended meaning is ; / am the soul
of the world!' The Mobed Peshkar of Patna, we
are told, " attained the knowledge of God and him-

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 179

self, and he became eminently divested of prejudice
and exempted from human Infirmities: being totally
unfettered by the bonds or chains of any sect what-
ever, and studiously shunning the polemic domains
of prejudice; in short, the eulogium of one creed
and the abhorrence of another, entered not into
his system." The Shaikh Bahu-ud-din Muhammed
Amall, enchanted by the noble sentiments of
Kaiviin, a Zoroastrlan sage, became his follower,
and nobly exclaims : " As the splendour of the
Almighty is in every place, knock thou either at
the door of the kabah or the portals of the fire-
temple."

The editors of the Dabistan say : " There Is
scarcely a tenet to be found In any other creed
which does not, at least in its germ, exist in the
Hindu religion." And yet while thus showing an
appreciation of a profound truth, they also say that
the common state of a Yogi " is that of complete
impasslveness or torpor ;" thereby indicating that
the Hindu search, through Yoga, after the very
spiritual light and powers exemplified in the joyous
cry of the Sufi Jellal-Eddin, was a thing they did
not appreciate. And yet they affirm this great truth
that "in all times and places, the religion of the ' En-
lightened' was distinguished from that of the 'Vul-
gar ; ' the first as Interior, being the product of uni-
versal reason, was everywhere nearly uniform ; the
second, as exterior, being composed of particular
and arbitrary rites and ceremonies, varied accord-
ing to the influence of the climate, and the char-

I So THEOSOPHY,

acter, history, and civilization of a people. But, in
the course of time, no religion remained entirely
the same, either in principle or form." The core
and heart of all was a like aspiration after spiritual
truth. This spiritual aspiration for absolute know-
ledge is true Theosophy, and the word that our
Society brought to the Western world was that the
acquirement of this knowledge was possible by
self-discipline and purification and development.
We first proclaim then the universal brotherhood of
man and the duty of all to join in what will pro-
mote the welfare of the human race, especially those
who are weakest and most need help. We do not
claim this as any new doctrine ; it has been often
enunciated by other societies. But we are trying
to make those who accept it in theory, show it in
practice. Our plan has been to interest groups of
men of different races and religions to co-operate
with each other in this direction. We have suc-
ceeded to a certain extent — to an extent which might
surprise some who have imagined that we were do-
ing nothing. I hear we are accused of greatly ex-
aeeeratinsf our numbers. We have members in the
two Americas, in Australia and the West Indies, in
Siam and Burmah, in Java, Holland, Austria,
Russia, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Ger-
many, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Cyprus, Ceylon,
Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Mexico, Japan,
and, here, in India.

Thus, in ever widening circles, like the wavelets
caused by a stone that drops in water, runs on the

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. i8i

impulse given to contemporaneous thought by the
Theosophical Society. That impulse is now so
marked, and has gone so far beyond any blunders
in judgment we may make — so far beyond the
reach of anything we, Founders of the Society,
could do to check it, did we even wish to do
so — that the established and inexorable law of the
diffusion of human thought would carry it down
the century were we to die tomorrow. I have here
the photograph of a group of some three hundred
boys who are regularly attending the school
recently opened by our branch Society at Galle, Cey-
lon— one of the five schools that have sprung up in
that island as the result of our recent visit.* Every
boy is the son of Buddhist parents, and nearly all
were until now being educated in missionary schools,
where their minds were being turned away from the
religion of their forefathers. The teachers you see
here are Buddhist members of our Society, and our
noble colleagues pay the school's entire expenses
out of their private means. That no such schools
have been founded by Theosophists in India may
be accounted for, partly because Government is
doing so much for non-sectarian education, but
mainly because we have not yet received into our

* The attendance increased to five hundred, and this so alarmed the
missionaries that they opened their principal school as a free school,
offering to give a first-class education gratis. The Buddhists are so
poor that they availed themselves of the chance, and our numbers
largely declined. When some generous friend shall help them to
funds, ours will be made a free school, and then we shall have all out-
boys back again with a rush.

1 82 TBEOSOPHY,

Society men with the liberality of Jamsetji
Jeejibhoy, Jaggernath Sunkerseth, Gokuldas Tejpal,
or Cowasji Jehangir, though we have one member
worth fifteen lakhs. And so long as the schools
are but founded, it matters little that we should
have the mere credit of their establishment. Our
highest hope is to arouse others to noble deeds, and
to cause the seeds of a great and permanent reform
to be scattered. From the first we have been
fortunate in attracting into our membership many
authors, journalists and others who address the
public or have a hand in the work of education.
This will explain to you why our theosophical ideas
should have so rapidly gained a world-wide circula-
tion. Theosophy, properly understood, has not one
feature calculated to excite the hostility of reason-
able men of any school of science or religion. I will
lay down two cardinal propositions — (i.) That,
psychically, all men are brothers, all equally entitled
to know divine truth, and, without distinction of na-
tionality or faith, should join for the general good of
humanity ; bound by a common tie and common
sympathies. For united effort not only mitigates
the hardness of the task, but produces tenfold
p-reater results in the same time. One ant can
carry but a grain of dust at once, but a colony of
ants labouring together can remove the largest
house in time. So one man, unless endowed with
extraordinary advantages, can accomplish compara-
tively little ; but with co-operation every thing is
possible. This help we ask, this we have the right

ns FRIEA'DS AND ENEMIES. 183

to expect ; and, as I have shown you, we have had
it from thousands of well-wishers whose faces we
have never seen and never may see. (2.) My
second proposition is that every human being has
within his own nature, in a greater or less degree,
certain sublime faculties which, when fully
developed, will give him divine knowledge. The
theory upon which almost all formalized religions
rest is that only a certain favoured class of men
have these spiritual capacities, and alone can be
permitted to exercise them. But, as I said before,
there have been " emancipated " or "illuminated "
ones under all the various religions, and the testi-
mony they have brought back to us from their
soul-flights into the inner world has essentially
agreed. We have seen that when a certain point
of this interior development is reached, the seer
loses all sense of his nationality, his theology, even
of his personality. His pettiness becomes infinitely
expanded, and, from the consciousness of being a
microscopic point as compared to the whole, he
feels that he is in all, bounds all, is all. The body
he so cherished and lavished so much care and
thought upon is now felt to be a clog and impedi-
ment— if, indeed, he can cramp himself down to a
realisation that it exists. How beautiful, how
suggestive, the verse of the poet Hafiz, where, in a
charming allegory, he describes the ease with which
the absolute truth may be attained when the barriers
of flesh arc once surmounted : —

1 84 THEOSOPHY,

" The perfect beauty of my beloved is not concealed by an inter-
posing veil ;
O Hafiz, iJioii ai't the curtain of the road ; remove away."

There are no secrets of nature impenetrable, he
would say ; the only obstacle to our gaining full
knowledge is SELF. This is the coward, the
traitor, the despot, the bigot, the swinish sensualist,
the lump of egotism. This Self is the serpent
coiled beneath the flowers of life. This is that
which stifles all good and noble aspirations, and
which makes the Rights of Man as a whole ruth-
lessly sacrificed to the base greed of the individual
man. Ah ! the dream of Universal Brotherhood
of Man, when nations will cease to enslave nations,
and the only strife will be who can best live up to
the ideal of human perfectibility ! The bright
vision mocks us even as we gaze upon its splendour,
yet happy he who has even been so blessed as to
see it in his dreams. Theosophy is the enchantress
that alone can conjure it up ; and though hard be
the task and disheartening the delay in gaining the
divine wisdom, when once gained, the sacrifices of
a life seem no adequate price to pay for its acquisi-
tion.

Who are the friends of this Theosophy — v.'ho its
enemies ? I utter no paradox in saying that in the
cause of Theosophy, as of every other cause, those
esteemed its friends are sometimes its worst
enemies, and its would-be enemies often its best
friends. For the zeal of the former is often
inordinate, and the poisoned darts of the latter

ITS FRIEjVDS and ENEMIES. 185

often recoil from the polished shield of truth and
wound the one who hurled them. If I frankly
include myself in the former category, I should be
acquitted of egotism, and so I do. My Cause is
far greater than my ability to serve it effectively,
and none knows so well as I how much and often
this sacred cause may have been injured by the
errors I have myself committed. It is not a ques-
tion to be considered whether my motives have
been good ; for results are the current coin in the
exchequer of moral justice. The Christian hell, the
proverb says, is paved with good intentions ; a
Christian sect has adopted the motto Finis coronat
opus — the end justifies the means — and made it the
pretext for nameless and numberless crimes against
humanity. As regards the moral accountability of
the individual, the question is whether he has done
all he could with the means at his disposal to
realize a worthy ideal. If Theosophy has suffered
from my blunders, who profess to be among its
most earnest advocates, its mouth-piece, so has the
progress of our Society suffered through the inex-
cusable heedlessness of our associated fellows and
members in holding such extravagant views of the
Founders, and expecting them to be above the
weaknesses of mortality. This I have touched upon
already, but I revert to it from a desire to press
home the thought that a would-be friend may con-
vert himself into a dangerous enemy by setting up
the illusions of his own fancy, and then growing
indifferent, if not hostile, when the glamour passes

1 86 THEOSOPHY,

awa}^ " Are these Theosophlsts," asks a certain
Mr. Ganpatrao of the editor of the Indu Prakash,
"in conduct like ordinary people of the world, or
like Tukaram, and other SadJuis of ancient times ? "
Now, if the false report had not spread that we
were like Sadhns, our friend would never have
thought of asking such a question. If the gentle-
man is within the sound of my voice, let me answer
that we are nothing but ordinary people, and never
pretended to be anything else. We never asked
people to look upon us as gurus, or follow our per-
sonal example ; though we have tried, as far as
our natural infirmities permitted, to make that
example a good one. What we have said to the
Hindus is, " Follow the example of your Tukarams
and your Harischandras, of your Rishis and your
Yogis ; follow them as models, and not any
foreigner, even though he may think your ancestors
fools, and not know he is one himself in saying, or
even thinking, so. And we have tried to make the
dignity, the virtue, and the learning of those
ancestors of yours appreciated by you, and respected
by the whole v/orld."

" Have they conquered the six passions of Lust,
Anger, Greediness, Vanity, Avarice, and Envy ? "
he asks. Now it is for those who are best acquainted
with our daily lives and conversation to answer this
question. I leave it to them to answer ; not alto-
gether now, but after we are dead and gone, when
the truth shall shine out through the clouds of
partiality, on the one side, and of prejudice, on the

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 187

Other. Some of these vices we may, I think, justly
claim to be exonerated from having even now.
For no one in India, even our worst enemy, would
dare accuse us of either lust, greediness, avarice, or
envy. If I were to tell you we are perfectly free of
vanity it would perhaps be taken as the best proof
that we are not, or remain for ever an open question ,
as nothing is so difficult as to prove whether it is
personal Vanity in man or a justifiable Pride which
is his secret motor. From anger we certainly are
not exempt; we have not yet reached the stage where
one can suffer in silence and with smiles the cruel
stripes of slander, the base return of treachery and
ingratitude, the wilful perversion of our motives, the
cowardly assaults on character by masked assassins.
No, not perfect yet — alas 1 not yet. But even sup-
posing that we are not to be ranked among the
" emancipated ones," though striving hard, does our
questioner therefore give us to understand that he is
not bound to listen to our advice to put aside his own
vices and take examplefromthe virtues of Tukaram?
That is the gist of the whole question ; and this
interrogatory reflects the now universally prevalent
tone of public thought — viz., that to find some holy
or supposed holy person, and nominally enroll one-
self as his admirer, follower, ©r pupil, will confer
merit and secure vioksha without self-sacrifice or
the conquest over evil passions. Not only by word
of mouth in private conversations, but from many
public platforms, and through our journal, the
Theosophist, we have tried to compel the public

1 88 THEOSOPHY,

to think of the great problem of Theosophy, and
pointed all who would learn to the ancient Aryan
sources of information.

Mr. Gunpatrao's next question is, " How far do
the Theosophists keep up to the standard of Brother-
hood ? " I will tell him that he may search ■ the
whole history of our Society, and he will find that
we have always been on the side of the weak against
the strong. We have, as you have seen in what
has been shown you respecting the spread of our
fellowship to all the quarters of the world, linked
many, of many nations and creeds, together with
the tie of mutual reciprocity and tolerance. " This
new Gospel," says a writer in a London journal,
" appears to be now in the ascendancy among
spiritualists. Its immense value in behalf of the
well-being of mankind cannot be over-estimated.
We rejoice to see the Theosophists in Hindustan
. . really labouring towards this goal." " That
greatproject of human fraternity," writesM. Fauvety,
President of the Paris Psychological Society, "which
you propose to realise by means peculiar to your-
selves. . . constitutes the grandest and noblest
tentative that has been essayed on the road to
universal conciliation." " Such a society as yours,"
says the venerable French metaphysician Cahagnet,
in accepting our diploma of Fellow, " has been the
dream of my wdiole life." Says the Pioneer of
Allahabad — a paper which before we came to India
and promulgated our views, was certainly never
charged with any specially weak tolerance of Hin-

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 189

duism — "We have no hesitation in recognising the
Theosophical Society as a beneficent agency in
promoting good feeling between the two races in
this country, not merely on account of the ardent
response it awakens from the Native community,
but also because of the way in which it certainly
does tend to give Europeans in India a better kind
of interest in the country than they had before."
"No man," remarks the Colombo (Ceylon) Ex-
iwiiner, " who has a firm faith in what he believes
is the truth, and the excellence of his own system
of faith, can quarrel with the Theosophists. . . .
They tell us they have a conscientious mission to
perform, and we see them labouring earnestly in
the discharge of their self-imposed duties. . . . the
spirit of research they are striving to infuse into
the torpid minds of our countrymen cannot fail to
lead to good results." " Let us," says the noble
President of the Ionian Theosophical Society, of
Corfu (Greece), in his Inaugural Address, " let us
place the brotherhood of nations as the first of our
wishes, and let us hasten the coming of that blessed
moment when the whole of mankind will be gathered
in one fold and will have but one shepherd." The
Amriia Bazar Patrika, that fearless champion of
Indian interests, speaking of our journal, says
"Since the Theosophist carefully abstains from
politics, and its plan is one of Universal Brother-
hood, it should be welcomed by every sect and
people throughout the world. And as it recognises
the Aryans as the fathers of all religions and

190 THEOSOPHY,

sciences, Hindus owe it their enthusiastic sup-
port."

Omitting personal matters, what remains is to
dispose of the question of occult phenomena. The
IndiL PrakasJCs correspondent wishes to know
whether Madame Blavatsky has produced real
phenomena; whether she will do so again ; and
whether the correspondent himself may have a
special chance to see them ? Now, as far as human
evidence will go, the proof is apparently overwhelm-
ing that at Simla, Benares, and elsewhere, strange
things of this nature did occur, and that they were
real and not mere deceptions. Tricks, gentlemen,
are played only by tricksters — persons who have no
character to lose, and who have an interested
motive in making their dupes believe their lies.
You will get no Court in any civilized country in
the world to withhold from an accused person of pre-
vious good character the benefit of the doubt. And
now tell me, if you please, what was Madame Bla-
vatsky's interested motive in this case? She is not
here, and I may speak freely what I have to say
about her. What was the motive? Money? She
never asked or received one anna's value for any
phenomenon she ever produced either in India or
elsewhere. And, mind you, these phenomena have
attended her for many years, all over the world, as
she has journeyed to study occult science. If it were
at all worth the trouble I could occupy hours in read-
ing to you reports of the strange feats of this kind
she did in America alone, in the presence of all

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 191

manner of people. I might give you the names and
addresses of enough credible witnesses — sceptics —
to prove her possession of these powers to the satis-
faction of any fair-minded man. And her vindi-
cation might be made with the greatest ease by
collecting the testimony of eye-witnesses in India,
who would certify to facts more reraarkable than
any that have been reported in the papers. Well,
then, if money was not her object, was it fame ?
A sorry reward, indeed, this sort of fame, which
makes her the subject of the scurvy jests and pus-
illanimous jeers of the ignorant and prejudiced !
Her fame is already secured in the authorship of
his Unveiled, one of the most masterly reviews of
ancient and modern Science and Theology ever
written : a book which one of the best of our con-
temporaneous critics pronounces " one of the re-
markable productions of the century." Only here
in India has the book had the honour of being
abused by certain petty editors. I say "honour,"
for it is an honour to be abused, as it is a disgrace to
be praised, by such weathercocks. Well, if neither
money nor fame forced her to invite such criticisms,
what then ? Come, you who rake the gutters of
human nature for bits of garbage to fling in decent
people's faces, what is left for you to insinuate ?
She is a woman ; strike her in the good woman's
most sensitive moral part — her motive. Ah, shame
on slanderers ! See this great, generous-hearted
soul, filled with love for humanity; longing to throw
lif^ht into the darkened minds of those who still

192 THEOSOFHY,

believe in miracles, and still clank the chains of
superstition; devoting her life, sacrificing the sweets
of home, and family and ease, and a high social
position, to go about the world in search of truth,
and spreading it so that all may partake. Those
who know her best appreciate her abnegation and
perfect disinterestedness ; and though some who
do- not understand her motives may think — nay
even take upon themselves to proclaim her accord-
ing to their worldly understanding a hallucinated
lunatic — no one had better venture to call her an
impostor, unless, indeed, he is prepared to be him-
self called by some of the most renowned men
living a vile slanderer ! Here stand I, her witness
and friend, I whom she took out of the ditch of
worldly selfishness and put on the path to divine
truth and happiness. I am here to tell you that I
should deserve to have my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth were I to keep silence when her
motives are thus called in question.

She has shown her phenomena from what I con-
ceive to be the mistaken idea that when there was no
reasonable ground for suspicion of their genuineness
they would be acknowledged, and the public would
try to learn as she had learned, and then, whether
materialists or religious bigots, become wiser and
happier. Noticing the impending visit to India of
Professor Solavief, the " Herbert Spencer of Russia,"
the Pioneer editorially remarks : —

" He (Prof. Solavief) has been impressed with a sense of the im-
portance of Hindu thought in connexion with pure speculation, by

ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 193

the light thrown on this subject by the Theosophical Society and
its stupidly maligned, and so far ill-appreciated founder, Madame
Blavatsky. The fact is, that while we (Englishmen) in India have
been in contact with the remains of old native culture for a hundred
years without having detected its significance, it has been reserved
for the indomitable old lady just mentioned to put an entirely new
face on Oriental philosophy. ... It will probably surprise
some heedless jokers in the press to hear that already some of the
foremost European metaphysicians in India have acknowledged
this. . . ."

Bitter experience has taught her the truth that
human nature is too base to be honest. Were I in
her place I would never again — at least not in India
— thus fling myself as a victim to be mangled by
the hounds. There are many who would regard the
Theosophical Society as a miracle club, by joining
which, whether deserving or not, they ought to get
their fill of wonders. Some, devoid of patriotism
and the instinct of race pride, caring nothing for
the vindication in modern eyes of their ancestral
fame and glories, but only eager for their senses to
be astonished by phenomena, have felt themselves
aggrieved because they have seen none. Madame
Blavatsky has been reviled by them and through
them, because of their disappointment. The pub-
lished testimony of those who have witnessed the
most wonderful things, has caused her to be pounced
upon by a host of newspaper critics, as though she
were not a private individual who never showed any-
thing but to a limited circle of friends, but a sort of
professional juggler who had cheated them out of
their money. But even though they sawten thousand
phenomena, yet neither studied nor put forth indi-

N

194 THEOSOPHY,

vidual efforts, they would never reap the slightest
benefit. They would never learn the great truth,
that while occult phenomena are possible, a miracle
is an impossibility in nature. Spiritualism has for the
past thirty-two years been surfeiting the public with
phenomena of the most startling description : the
known laws of force have been upset, matter has
displayed qualities never suspected before, and even
the figures, or rather portrait-statues of the dead
have stalked in our presence, and revealed the
secrets of the shadow world. Has religion or
philosophy been the gainer by all this ? No.
Have the mass of investigators been stimulated to
nobler lives ? No. Those that were moral before
are for the most part moral still, and the bad con-
tinue bad. We are gorged with phenomena, we
need philosophy and a sure path to release us from
our pain and suffering. Where is this knowledge
to be sought for? Here, in India ; and if you will
question either one of the hundreds of European
visitors with whom Madame Blavatsky has talked
in different countries, you will find that her con-
stant vehement assertion has ever been that what
she knows she learned in India and Tibet, and that
for what they taught her she gives her love and her
life, If necessary, to promote the happiness of their
people.

" But is not your Society established for the sole
purpose of giving these experimental proofs of
psychic power ? " some will ask. I answer, no ;
more phenomena have been shown to outsiders than

ITS FJ^IENDS AND ENEMIES. 795

to members, because every man who joins us to
study occultism, tacitly pledges himself to try to
develop his own latent psychic powers. If he does
this he is helped, if not he is left to wait until he
can decide to rouse himself to exertion. Adeptship
implies the highest success in self-evolution, and
the lavish display of phenomena to beginners is as
demoralising as overdoses of opium or brandy. It
either kills effort, or excites a frenzy of supersti-
tious adulation. Do you know what we might
have done in India by this time as easily as I can
lift this paper ? We might have formed a new
sect that would now count its tens of thousands of
devotees. If we had been vain and unprincipled
enough to have given ourselves out as two Sadhus
bearing a divine commission and preaching under
inspiration ; and if Madame Blavatsky had publicly
done one-fourth of the phenomena I have seen her
do in America, or even in India, in private, and the
occurrence of which is perfectly attested, you
would have seen thousands prostrating themselves
before the flag of the Theosophical Society, and
trampling one another to come and embrace our
feet. Do you doubt it ? You would not if you
stopped to read our correspondence, and note the
extravagant lengths to which the imagination of
our friends has carried them. I can show any of
you, if you choose, a bundle of requests for the
miraculous cure of physical and mental ailments,
the recovery of lost property, and other favours.
And, lest my English auditors might be disposed

196 IHEOSOPHY,

to laugh in their sleeves at Hindu credulity, let me
warn them tha't some of the most preposterous of
these requests have come from their own com-
munity ; some from persons so highly placed
that they have asked that their names may be
withheld at all hazards. All this is a saddening
proof of the unspirituality and rankling superstition
of the present age. Adepts do not show them-
selves or their phenomena because there is no
public to appreciate them. It is known that we
have affirmed that some of these maJiatnias are in
relations with our Society, and take an interest in
its welfare. I reaffirm the statement, and at the
same time protest against the daring supposition
that for that reason they are responsible for all or
any of the mistakes in its management. Those
faults are all my own and count against me. I
have realised, too late, that the public who could so
basely treat a woman who was but their disciple*
could not understand anything that might be said
about them. So, henceforth, I shall try to abstain
from even speaking of them, except to such as are
prepared and anxious for the truth. An age that
is satisfied with church miracles, mediumist phe-
nomena, or the most rank materialism, without
seeking further for the hidden causes, may as well
be left to play with its toys. The thoughtful man
need ask for no more wondrous phenomenon than his
own existence, no greater miracle than the display
of his own splendid powers. He is surrounded by
a world of phenomena scarcely one of which has

ITS FRIENDS AiVD ENEMIES. 197

he traced to its ultimate source. The steps of
science are near the threshold of the sanctuary ; her
hand held out to feel the lintels of the door which
with her bandaged eyes she cannot see. Mystery
on mystery of the outer world has been unearthed,
until it almost seems as though there were but little
left to learn. This blinded goddess of Materialist
Science has but just begun to dream that a universe
of vast extent may lie behind the curtain at the
door. She stands without, uncertain, groping ; and
across the threshold waits Theosophy — sweetest of
all the devis into which poetic fancy ever made a
thought personified — and holding out her own
strong hand says, " Sister Science, come ! The
field is boundless, let us search together."

THE OCCULT SCIENCES.*

In the tenth chapter of his famous work, entitled
All Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,
Hume attempts to define the limits of philoso-
phical inquiry. So pleased was the author with
his work that he has placed it on record that with
the " wise and learned " — a most necessary separa-
tion, since a man may be wise without being at all
learned, while modern science has introduced to us
many of her most famous men who, through burst-
ing, like Jack Bunsby, with learning, were far, very
far from wise — this postulate of his must be " an
everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious de-
lusions." For many years this oracular utterance
was unquestioned, and Hume's apothegm was laid,
like a handkerchief steeped in chloroform, over the
mouth of every man who attempted to discuss the
phenomena of the invisible world. But a brave
Englishman and man of science, to-wit, Mr. Alfred
Russell Wallace, F.R.S., has of late called Hume's
infallibility in question. He finds two grave de-
fects in that writer's proposition that " a miracle is a
violation of the laws of Nature ; " since it assumes,
firstly, that we know all the laws of Nature ; and
secondly, that an unusual phenomenon is a miracle.

* A Lecture deliveretl at Colombo, Ceylon, 15th June, 1880.

THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 199

Speaking deferentially, is it not after all a piece of
preposterous egotism for any living man to say
what is, or rather what is not^ a law of Nature ? I
have enjoyed the acquaintance of scientists who
could actually repeat the names of the several
parts of a cockroach, and even of a flea. Upon this
rare accomplishment they plumed themselves not
a little, and took on the airs of men of science.
I talked with them about the laws of Nature,
and found they thought they knew enough of
them to dogmatize to me about the Knowable and
Unknowable. I know doctors of medicine, even
professors, adepts in physiology and able to dose
their patients without exceeding the conventional
average of casualities good-naturedly permitted to
the profession. They have dogmatized to me
about science and the laws of Nature, although not
one of them could tell me anything positive about
the life of man, whether in the state of ovum, of
embryo, of infant, of adult, or of corpse. The most
candid medical authorities have always frankly
confessed that the human being is a puzzle as
yet unsolved and medicine "scientific guess-
work." Has ever yet a surgeon, as he stood beside
a subject on the dissecting table of the amphi-
theatre, dared to tell his class that he knew what
life is, or that his scalpel could cut away any in-
tegumental veil so as to lay bare the myster}' ?
Did any modern botanist ever venture to explain
that tremendous secret law which makes every
seed produce the plant or tree of its own kind ?

2CO THE OCCULT SCIENCES,

Mr. Huxley and his fellow-biologists have shown
us protoplasm — the gelatinous substance which
forms the physical basis of life — and told us that
it is substantially identical in composition in
plant and animal. But they can go no farther than
the microscope and spectroscope will carry them.
Do you doubt me ? Then hear the mortifying con-
fession of Professor Huxley himself. " In perfect
strictness," he says, " it is true that we know
nothing about the composition of any body what-
ever, as it is ! " And yet what scientist is there
who has dogmatized more about the limitations of
scientific inquiry ? Do you think that, because the
chemists can dissolve for you the human body into
its elementary gases and ashes, until what was once
a tall man can be put into an empty cigar-box and
a large bottle, they can help you any better to
understand what that living man really was ? Ask
them — I am willing to let the case rest upon their
own unchallenged evidence.

Science ? Pshaw ! What is there worthy to
bear that imperial name so long as its most noisy
representatives cannot tell us the least part of the
mystery of man or of the nature which environs
him ? Let science explain to us how the smallest
blade of grass grows, or bridge over the " abyss "
which Father Felix, the great French Catholic
orator, tauntingly told the Academy, existed for
it in a grain of sand, and then dogmatize as much
as it likes about the laivs of Nature ! In common
with all heretics, I hate this presumptuous pre-

THE OCCULT SCIENCES, 201

tcnce ; and as one who, having studied psychology
nearly thirty years, has some right to be heard, I
protest against, and utterly repudiate, the least
claim of our modern science to know all the laws of
Nature, and to say what Is, or what Is not, possible.
As for the opinions of non-scientific critics, who
never Informed themselves practically about even
one law of Nature, they are not worth even listen-
ing to. And yet what a clamour they make, to be
sure ; how the public ear has been assailed by the
din of these ignorant and conceited criticasters! It
is like being among a crowd of stock-brokers on the
Exchange. Every one of the authorities is dogma-
tizing in his most vociferous and impressive manner.
One would think to read and hear what all these
priests, editors, authors, deacons, elders, civil and
military servants, lawyers, merchants, vestrymen,
and old women, and their followers, admirers, and
echoing toadies have to say — that the laws of
i^ature were as familiar to them as the alphabet,
and that every one carried in his pocket the com-
bination key to the Chubb lock of the Universe ! If
these people only realized how foolish they really
are In rushing in

"... where angels fear to tread,"

they might somewhat abate their pretences. And
if common sense were as plentiful as conceit, a
lecture upon the Occult Sciences would be listened
to with a more humble spirit than, I am afraid, can
be counted upon In our days.

202 THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

I have tried, by simply calling your attention to
the confessed ignorance of our modern scientists of
the nature of life, to show you that in fact all visible
phenomena are occult or hidden from the average
inquirer. The term ocailt has been given to the
sciences relating to the mystical side of nature — the
department of force or spirit. Open any book on
scieflce, or listen to any lecture or address by a
modern authority, and you will see that modern
science limits its inquiry to the visible material or
physical universe. The combinations and correla-
tions of matter, under the impulse of hidden forces,
are what it studies. To facilitate this line of
inquiry, mechanical ingenuity has lent the most
marvellous assistance. The microscope has now
been perfected so as to reveal the tiniest object in
the tiny world of a drop of dew ; the telescope
brings into its field and focus glittering constella-
tions that, as Moore poetically says —

" stand

Like winking sentinels upon the void
Beyond which Chaos dwells ; "

the chemist's balances will weigh matter to the ten-
thousandth part of a grain ; by the spectroscope
the composition of all things on earth and suns
and stars is claimed to be demonstrable in the lines
they make across the spectrum ; substances hitherto
supposed to be elements are now proved to be com-
pounds, and what we had imagined to be compounds
are found to be elements. Inch by inch, step by
step, physical science has marched, from its old

THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 203

prison In the dungeon of the Church towards Its
desired goal — the verge of physical nature. It
would not be too much to admit that the verge has
been almost reached, but that Edison's recent dis-
coveries of the telephone, the phonograph, and the
electric light, and Crookes's of the existence and
properties of radiant matter, seem to have pushed far-
ther away the chasm that separates the confessedly
knowable from the fancied unknowable. The recent
advances of physical science tend to mitigate somiC-
what the pride of our scientists. It is as though
whole domains, previously undreamt of, were
suddenly exposed to view as each new eminence
of knowledge is gained; just as the traveller sees
lone reaches of country to be traversed upon climb-
inp- to the crest of the mountain that had been
shuttlne him in within a narrow horizon. The fact
is that whether regarded from her physical or
dynamical side, Nature is a book with an endless
variety of subjects to be studied and mysteries
to be unravelled. And, as regards science, there is
a thousand times more that is occult than familiar
and easy to understand.

The realization of this fact, both as the result of
personal inquiry and of conversation with the
learned, was one chief cause of the foundation of
the Theosophlcal Society.

Now, it must be agreed that while the first
necessity for the candid student Is to discover the
depth and immensity of his own ignorance, the
next is to find out where and how that ignorance

204 THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

may be dispelled. We must first fit ourselves to
become pupils and then look about for a teacher.
Where, in what part of the world, can there be
found men capable of teaching us a part of the
mystery hidden behind the mask of the world
of matter? Who holds the secret of life? Who
knows what force is, and what causes it to bring
around its countless, eternal correlations with the
molecules of matter? What adept can unriddle
for us the problem how worlds are built and why ?
Can any one tell us whence man came, whither he
goes, what he is ? What is the secret of birth, of
sleep, of thought, of memory, of death ? What is
that eternal, self-existent principle by common
consent believed to be the source of everything
visible and invisible, and with which man claims
kinship ? We little modern people have been
going about in search after this teacher, with our
toy lanterns in our hands, as though it were night
instead of bright day. The light of truth shines
all the while, but we, being blind, cannot see it.
Does a new authority proclaim himself, we run from
all sides, but only see a common man with ban-
daged eyes, holding a pretty banner and blowing
his own trumpet. " Come," he cries, " come, good
people, and listen to one who knows the laws of
Nature. Follow my lead, join my school, enter my
church, buy my nostrum, and you will be wise in
this world, and happy hereafter ! " How many of
these pretenders there have been, how they have
imposed for a while upon the world, what mean-

THE OCCULT SCIEMCES. 205

nesses and cruelties their devotees have done in
their behalf, and how their shams and humbugs have
ultimately been exposed, the pages of history show.
There is but one truth, and that is to be sought for
in the mystical world of man's interior nature ;
theosophically, and by the help of the " Occult
Sciences."

If history has preserved for us the record of
multitudinous failures of materialists to read the
secret laws of Nature, it has also kept for our
instruction the stories of many successes gained by
Theosophists in this direction. There is no im-
penetrable mystery in Nature to the student who
knows how to interrogate her. If physical facts can
be observed by the eye of the body, so can spiritual
laws be discovered by that interior perception of
ours which we call the eye of the spirit. This per-
ceptive power inheres in the nature of man ; it is
the godlike quality which makes him superior to
brutes. What we call seers and prophets, what the
Buddhists know as arahats and the Aryans as true
sanyasis, are only men who have emancipated their
interior selves from physical bondage by meditation
in secluded spots where the foulness of average
humanity could not taint them, and where they
were nearest to the threshold of Nature's temple ;
and by the gradual and persistent conquest of
brutal desire after desire, taste after taste, weakness
after weakness, sense after sense, have moved
forward to the ultimate victory of spirit. Jesus is
said to have gone thus apart to be tempted ; so did

2o6 THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

Mahomet, who spent one day in every month alone
in a mountain cave ; so did Zoroaster, who emerged
from the sechision of his mountain retreat only at
the age of forty ; so did Buddha, whose knowledge
of the cause of pain, and discovery of the path to
Nirvana^ was obtained by solitary self-struggles in
desert places. Turn over the leaves of the book of
records, and you will find that every man who
really did penetrate the mysteries of life and death
got the truth in solitude and in a mighty travail of
body and spirit. These were all Theosophists —
that is, original searchers after spiritual know-
ledge. What they did, what they achieved, any
other man of equal qualities may attain to. And
this is the lesson taught by the Theosophical
Society. As they wrested her secrets from the
bosom of Nature, so would we. Buddha said we
should believe nothing upon authority, not even
his own ; but because our reason told us the
assertion was true. He began by striding over
even the sacred Vedas because they were used to
prevent original theosophical research ; castes he
brushed aside as selfish monopolies. His desire
was to fling wide open every door to the sanctuary of
Truth. We organized our Society — as the very first
section of our original bye-laws expresses it — " for
the discovery of all the laws of Nature and the dis-
semination of the knowledge of the same." The
known laws of Nature why should we busy our-
selves with ? The unknown or occult ones were to
be our special province of research. No one in

THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 207

America, none in Europe, now living, could help us,
except in special branches, such as magnetism,
crystal-reading, psychometry, and those most
striking phenomena of so - called mediumship,
grouped together under the generic name of
modern spiritualism. Though the Vedas, the
Puranas, the Zend Avesta, the Koran, and the
Bible, teemed with allusions to the sayings and
doings of wonder-working Theosophists, we were
told by every one that the power had long since
died out, and the adepts vanished from the sight of
men. At the mere mention of occult science, the
modern biologist curled his lip In fine scorn, and
the lay fool gave way to senseless witticisms.

It was a discouraging prospect, certainly ; but in
this, as in every other instance, the difficulties were
more imaginary than real. We had a clue given
us to the right road by one who had spent a long
lifetime in travel, who had found the science to be
still extant, with its proficients and masters still
practising it as in ancient days. The tidings were
most encouraging, as are those of help or succour to
a party of castaways on an unfriendly shore. We
learnt to recognize the supreme value of the dis-
coveries of Paracelsus, of Mesmer, and of Baron von
Reichenbach, as the stepping-stones to the higher
branches of occultism. We turned again to study
them, and the more we studied the clearer insight
did we get into the meaning of Asiatic myth and
fable, and the real object and methods of the
ascetic Theosophists of all ages. The words "body,"

2o8 THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

" soul/' " spirit," Moksha and Nirvana, acquired
each a definite and comprehensible meaning. We
could understand what the Yogi wished to express
by his uniting himself with Brahma, and becoming
Brahma ; why the biographer of Jesus made him
say, " I and the Father are one ; " how Sankara-
charya and others could display such phenomenal
learning without having studied It In books ; whence
Zaratusht acquired his profound spiritual illumina-
tion ; and how the Lord Sakya Muni, though but
a man "born in the purple," might nevertheless
become all-wise and all-powerful. Would any
hearer learn this secret? Let him study mes-
merism, and master its methods until he can plunge
his subject Into so deep a sleep that the body is
made to seem dead, and the freed soul can be sent
whithersoever he wills, about the earth or among the
stars. Then he will see the separate reality of the
body and its dweller. Or, let him read Professor
Denton's " Soul of Things," and test the boundless
resources of psychometry ; a strange yet simple
science which enables us to trace back through ages
the history of any substance held in the sensitive
psychometer's hand. Thus a fragment of stone
from Cicero's house, or from the Egyptian pyramids;
a bit of cloth from a mummy's shroud ; or a faded
parchment, letter, or painting ; or some garment
or other article worn by a historic personage ; or a
fragment of an aerolite — give to the psychometer Im-
pressions, sometimes amounting to visions sur-
passingly vivid, of the building, monument, mummy,

THE OCCULT SCIENCES, 209

writer or painter, of the long-dead personage, or of
the meteoric orbit from which the last-named object
fell. This splendid science, for whose discovery,
in 1840, the world is indebted to Professor
Joseph R. Buchanan, now a Fellow of our Society,
has but just begun to show its capabilities. But
already it has shown us that in the Ahtsa, or Ether
of science, are preserved the records of every human
experience, deed and word. No matter how long
forgotten and gone by, they are still a record, and,
according to Buchanan's estimate, about four out of
every ten persons have in greater or less degree
the psychometrical power which can read those im-
perishable pages of the Book of Life. Taken by
itself, either mesmerism, or psychometry, or Baron
Reichenbach's theory of Odyle, or Odic force, is
sufficiently wonderful. In mesmerism a sensitive
subject is put by magnetism into the magnetic
sleep, during which the body is insensible to
pain, noise, or any other disturbing influence.
The psychometer, on the contrary, does not sleep,
but only sits or lies passively, holds the letter, frag-
ment of stone or other object, in the hand or
against the centre of the forehead, and, without
knowing at all what it is or whence it came,
describes what he or she feels or sees. Of the two
methods of looking into the invisible world, psycho-
metry is preferable, for it is not attended with those
risks of the magnetic slumber, which may arise from
inexperience in the operator, or from low physical
vitality in the somnambule. Baron Dupotet, M,

2IO THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

Cahagnet, Professor William Gregory, and other
authorities, tell us of instances of the latter sort, in
which the sleeper was with difficulty brought back to
earthly consciousness, so transcendently beautiful
were the scenes that broke upon his spiritual vision.
Reichenbach's discovery— the result of several
years' experimental research, with the most expen-
sive apparatus and a great variety of subjects, by one
of the most eminent chemists and physicists of
modern times— was this. A hitherto unsuspected
force exists in Nature, having, like electricity and
magnetism, its positive and negative poles. It per-
vades everything in the mineral, vegetable, and
animal kingdoms. Our earth is charged with it ;
it is in the stars ; and there is a close interchange
of polar influences between us and all the heavenly
bodies. Here I hold in my hand a specimen of
quartz crystal, sent me from the Gastein Moun-
tains, by the Baroness von Vay. Before Reich-
enbach's discovery of the Odic force — as he terms

it this would have had no special interest to the

geologist, except as a curious example of imperfect
crystallization. But now it has a definite value be-
yond this. If I pass the apex, or positive pole, over
the wrist and palm of a sensitive person — thus —
he will feel a sensation of warmth or cold, or the
blowing of a thin, very thin pencil of air over the
skin. Some feel one thing, some another, accord-
ing to the Odic condition of their own bodies.
Speaking of this latter phenomenon— viz., that
the Odic polaric condition of our bodies is peculiar

THE OCCUL T SCIENCES. 2 1 1

to ourselves, different from the bodies of each
other, different in the right and left sides, and
different at night and morning in the same body —
let me ask you whether a phenomenon long noticed,
supposed by the ignorant to be miraculous, and
yet constantly denied by those who never saw it,
may not be classed as a purely Odic one. I refer
to the levitation of ascetics and saints, the risincr
into the air of their bodies, at moments when they
were deeply entranced. Baron Reichenbach found
that the Odic sensibility of his best patients greatly
varied in health and disease. Professor Perty of
Geneva, and Dr. Justinus Korner tell us that the
bodies of certain hysterical patients rose into the
air without visible cause, and floated as light as a
feather. During the Salem witchcraft horrors, one
of the subjects, Margaret Rule, was similarly levi-
tated. Mr. William Crookes recently published a
list of no less than forty Catholic ecstatics whose
levitation is regarded as proof of their peculiar
sanctity. Now, I myself, in common with many
other modern observers of psychological pheno-
mena, have seen a person in the full enjoyment of
consciousness raised into the air by a mere
exercise of the will. This person was an Asiatic
by birth, had studied occult sciences in Asia,
and explains the remarkable phenomena as a
simple example of change of corporeal polarity.
You all know the electrical law that oppositely
electrified bodies attract, and similarly electrified
ones repel each other. We say that we stand upon

212 THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

the earth because of the force of gravitation, with-
out stopping to think how much of the explanation
is a mere patter of words conveying no accurate
idea to the mind. Suppose we say that we cHng to
the earth's surface, because the polarity of our body
is opposed to the polarity of the spot of earth upon
which we stand. That would be scientifically
correct. But how, if our polarity is reversed,
whether by disease, or the mesmeric passes of a
powerful magnetiser, or the constant effort of a
trained self-will ? To classify, let one imagine one-
self either a hysteric patient, an ecstatic, a somnam-
bule, or an adept in Asiatic occult science. In either
case, if the polarity of the body should be changed
to its opposite polarity, and so our electrical,
magnetic, or Odic state be made identical with that
of the ground beneath us, the long-known electro-
polaric law would assert itself, and our body would
rise into the air. It would float as long as these
mutual polaric differences continued, and rise to a
height exactly proportionate to their intensity. So
much of light is let into the old domain of Church
" miracles " by mesmerism and the Od discovery.

But our mountain crystal has another and far
more striking peculiarity than mere Odic polarity.
It is nothing apparently but a poor lump of glass,
and yet in its heart can be seen strange mysteries.
There are doubtless a score of persons in this great
audience who, if they would sit in an easy posture
and a quiet place, and gaze into my crystal for a
few minutes, would see and describe to me pictures

THE OCCULT SCIENCES, 213

of people, scenes and places in different countries, as
well as their own beautiful Ceylon. I gave the
crystal into the hand of a lady who is a natural
clairvoyant, just after I had received it from
Hungary. " I see," she said, " a large, handsome
room in what appears to be a castle. Through
an open window can be seen a small park, with
smooth, broad walks, trimmed lawns, and trees. A
noble-looking lady stands at a marble-topped table
doing up something into a parcel. A man-servant in
rich livery stands as though waiting for his mistress's
orders. It is this crystal that she is doing up, and
she puts it into a brown box, something like a
small musical-box." The clairvoyant knew nothing
about the crystal, but she had given an accurate
description of the sender, of her residence, and of
the box in which the crystal came to me.

Reichenbach's careful investigations prove that
minerals have each their own peculiar Odic polarity,
and this lets us into an understanding of much that
the Asiatic people have said about the magical
properties of gems. You have all heard of the
regard in which the sapphire has ever been held
for its supposed magical property to assist somnam-
bulic vision. " The sapphire," according to a
Buddhist writer, "will open barred doors and
dwellings (for the spirit of man) ; it produces a
desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace
than any other gem ; but he who would wear it
must lead a pure and holy life."

Now, a series of investigations by Amoretti into

214 THE OCCULT SCIENCES.

the electrical polarity of precious stones (which we
find reported in Kieser's Archia, vol. iv., p. 62)
resulted in proving that the diamond, the garnet,
the amethyst, are — E., while the sapphire is + E.
Orpheus tells how by means of a load-stone a whole
audience may be affected. Pythagoras, whose
knowledge was derived from India, pays a par-
ticular attention to the colour and nature of
precious stones ; and Apollonius of Tyana, one of
the purest and grandest men who ever lived,
accurately taught his disciples the various occult
properties of gems.

Thus does scientific inquiry, agreeing with the
researches of the greatest philosophers, the experi-
ences of religious ecstatics, continually — though, as
a rule, unintentionally — give us a solid basis for
studying occultism. The more of physical pheno-
mena we observe and classify, the more is the
student of occult sciences and of the ancient
Asiatic sciences, philosophies and religions helped.
We modern Europeans have been so blinded by
the fumes of our own conceit that we have not
been able to look beyond our noses. We have
been boasting of our glorious enlightenment, of
our scientific discoveries, of our civilization, of
our superiority to everybody wdth a dark skin,
and to every nation east of the Volga and the
Red Sea, or south of the Mediterranean, until
we have come almost to believe that the world
was built for the Anglo-Saxon race, and the stars
hung in the firmament to make our bit of sky

THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 215

pretty. We have even manufactured, out of
Asiatic materials, a religion to suit ourselves, and
think it better than any religion ever heard of
before. It is time this childish vanity were
done away with. It is time that we should
try to discover the sources of modern ideas, and
compare what we think we know of the laws of
Nature with what the Asiatic people really did
know thousands of years before Europe was in-
habited by our barbarian ancestors, or an European
foot was set upon the American continent. The
crucibles of science are heated red-hot, and we are
melting in them everything out of which we think
we can get a fact. Suppose that, for a change, we
approach the Eastern people in a less presumptuous
spirit, and honestly confessing that v/e know
nothing at all of the beginning or end of natural
law, ask them to help us to find out what their fore-
fathers knew. This has been the policy of the
Theosophical Society, and it has yielded valuable
results already. Depend upon it there are still
" wise men in the East," and the occult sciences are
better worth studying than has hitherto been
popularly supposed.

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.^^"

TilIRTEEN years ago, one of the most eminent
of modern American jurists — Cliief Justice
Edmonds, of the Supreme Court of New York —
declared in a London magazine that there were
then at least ten millions of Spiritualists in the
United States. No man was so well qualified
at that time to express an opinion upon this
subject, for not only was he in correspondence
with persons in all parts of the country, but
the noble virtue of the man, as well as his
learning, his judicial impartiality and conservatism,
made him a most competent and convincing
witness. And another authority, a publicist of
equally unblemished private and public reputation
— the Hon. Robert Dale Owen — while endorsing
Judge Edmonds's estimate, adds "f that there are at
least an equal number in the rest of Christendom.
To avoid chance of exaggeration, he, however,
deducts one-fourth from both calculations, and (in
1874) writes the sum-total of so-called Spirit-
ualists at fifteen millions. But whatever the aggre-

* A Lecture delivered at the Rooms of the United Service Institu-
tion of India, Simla, 7th October, 18S0.

t The Debatable Land belivecn this World and the Next, London,
1874, p. 174.

/

SPIRITUALISM AND THE OS 0 PHY. 217

gate of believers in the alleged present open inter-
course between the worlds of substance and
shadow, it is a known fact that the number
embraces some of the most acute intellects of our
day. It is no question now of the self-deceptions
of boors and of hysterical chambermaids that we
have to deal with. Those who would deny the
reality of these contemporary phenomena must
confront a multitude of our most capable men of
science, who have exhausted the resources of their
profession to determine the nature of the force at
work, and been baffled at seeking any other ex-
planation than the one of trans-sepulchral agency
of some kind or other. Beginning with Robert
Hare, the inventor of the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe
and the Nestor of American Chemistry, and ending
wdth Herr Zollner, Professor of Physical Astronomy
in Leipzig University, the list of these converted
experimentalists includes a succession of adepts of
physical science of the highest professional rank.
Each of them — except, perhaps, Zollner, who
wished to verify his theory of a fourth dimension
of space — began the task of investigation with the
avowed purpose of exposing the alleged fraud, in
the interests of public morals ; and each was trans-
formed by the irresistible logic of facts into an
avowed believer in the reality of mediumist
phenomena.

The apparatuses devised by these men of science
to test the mediumist power have been in the
highest degree ingenious. They have been of four

2i8 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

different kinds — [a) machines to determine whether
electrical or magnetic currents were operating ; {p)
whether the movement of heavy articles, such as
tables touched by the medium, was caused by
either conscious or unconscious muscular contrac-
tion ; ic) whether intelligent communications may
be received by a sitter under circumstances pre-
cluding any possible trickery by the medium ; and
id) what are the conditions for the manifestation
of this new form of energy and the extreme limita-
tions of its action? Of course, in an hour's lecture,
I could not describe a tenth part of these machines,
but I may take two as illustrating two of the
above-named branches of research. The first
will be found described in Professor Hare's work.
The medium and inquirer sit facing each other,
the medium's hands resting upon a bit of board so
hung and adjusted that whether he presses on the
board or not, he merely moves that and nothing
else. In front of the visitor is a dial, like a clock-
face, around which are arranged the letters of the
alphabet, the ten numerals, the words " Yes," " No,"
" Doubtful," and perhaps others. A pointer or
hand connected with a lever, the other end of
which is so placed as to receive any current
flowing through the medium's system, but not to be
affected by any mechanical pressure he may exert
upon the hand-rest, travels around the dial and
indicates the letters or words the communicating
intelligence wishes to be noted down. The back of
the dial being towards the medium, the latter, of

SPIRITUALISM AND THE OS 0 PHY, 219

course, cannot see what the pointer is doing, and
if the inquirer conceals the paper on which he
is noting down the communication, cannot have
even a suspicion of what is being said.

The other contrivance is described and illustrated
in the mono9;raph entitled, Researches in tJie PJicno-
vicna oj Spiritualising by Mr. William Crookes,
RR.S., editor of the Quarterly Jottrnal of Science,
and one of the most successful experimental
chemists of our day. A mahogany board, 36
inches long by 9<J inches wide, and one inch thick,
rests at one end upon a table, upon a strip cut
to a knife edge ; at the other end it is suspended
by a spring-balance, fitted with an automatic
registering apparatus, and hung from a firm
tripod. On the table end of the board, and
directly over the fulcrum, is placed a large vessel
filled with water. In this water dips, to the depth
of li inches from the surface, a copper vessel, with
bottom perforated so as to let the water enter it ;
which copper vessel is supported by a fixed iron
ring, attached to an iron stand that rests on
the floor. The medium is to dip his hands in
the water in the copper vessel, and as this is
solidly supported by its own stand and ring,
and nowhere touches the glass vessel holding the
water, you see that, should there occur any
depression of the pointer on the spring-balance at
the extreme end of the board, it unmistakeably
indicates that a current of force weighable in foot
pounds is passing through the medium's body.

220 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOFHY.

Well, both Dr. Hare with his apparatus, and ]\Ir.
Crookes with his, obtained the desired proof that
certain phenomena of mediumship do occur with-
out the interference, either honest or dishonest, of
the medium. To the power thus manifested,
Mr. Crookes, upon the suggestion of the late
Serjeant Cox, gave the appropriate name of
Psychic Force, and as such it will hereafter be
designated in this lecture.

I mention these two mechanical contrivances
m.erely to show those who, perhaps, have never
inquired into the matter, but have nevertheless
fallen into the common error of thinking the pheno-
mena to be all deceptions, that the utmost pains
have been taken by the cleverest scientists to guard
against the possibility of fraud in the course of their
experiments. If ever there was a fact of science
proved, it is that a new and most mysterious force
of some kind has been manifesting itself since
March, 1848, when this mighty modern epiphany
was ushered in, with a shower of raps, at an obscure
hamlet in New York State. Beginning with these
percussive sounds, it has since displayed its energy
in a hundred different phenomena, each inexpli-
cable upon any known hypothesis of science, and
in almost, if not quite, every country of the globe.
To advocate its study, expound its laws, and dis-
seminate its intelligent manifestations, hundreds of
journals and books have from time to time been
published in different languages ; the movement
has its schools and churches or meeting-halls, its

SPIRITUALISM AND THE OS 0 PHY. 221

preachers and teachers ; and a body of men and
women, numbering thousands at the least, are
devoting their whole time and vital strength to
the profession of medlumshlp. These sensitives,
or " psychics," are to be found in every walk of
life, in the palaces of royalty as well as the
labourer's cottage, and their psychical or medium-
ist gifts are as various as their individualities.

What has caused this world-wide expansion of
the new movement, and reconciled the public to
such a vast sacrifice of comfort, time, money and
social consequence ? What has spurred on so
many of the most intelligent people of all lands,
sects and races, to continue investigating ? What
has kept the faith alive in so many millions,
despite a multitude of sickening exposures of the
rascality of mediums, of the demoralizing tendency
of ill - regulated mediumship, and the average
puerility and frequent mendaclousness of the com-
munications received ? This : that a hope has
sprung up in the human breast that at last man
may have experimental proof of his survival after
bodily death, and a glimpse. If not a full revelation,
of his future destiny. All these millions cling, like
the drowning man to his plank, to the one hope
that the old, old questions of the what? the
whence ? the whither ? will now be solved, once
and for all. Glance through the literature of
Spiritualism and you will see what joy, what con-
solation, what perfect rest and courage, these
weird, often exasperating phenomena of the seance-

222 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

room have imparted. Tears have ceased to flow
from myriad eyes when the dead are laid away out
of sight, and broken ties of love and friendship are
no longer regarded by these believers as snapped
for ever. The tempest no longer affrights as it
did, and the terrors of battle and pestilence have
lost their greatest power for the modern Spiritualist.
The supposed intercourse with the dead and their
messages have sapped the infallible authority of
dogmatic theology. The Spiritualist, with the eye
of his new faith, now sees the dim outlines of a
summer land where we live and are occupied much
as upon earth. The tomb, instead of seeming the
mouth of a void of darkness, has come to look
merely like a sombre gateway to a country of sun-
light brightness and never-ending progression
towards the crowning state of perfectibility. Nay,
so definite have become the fancy pictures of this
summer land, one constantly reads of baby-children,
growing in spirit life to be adults ; of colleges and
academies for mortal guidance, presided over by
the world's departed sages ; and even of nuptial
unions between living men or women and the
denizens of the spirit world ! A case in point is
that of the Rev. Thomas Lake Harris, founder of
the socialist community on Lake Erie, who de-
clares himself duly married to a female spirit,
and that a child has blessed their union! Another
case is that of the marriage of two spirits in pres-
ence of mortal witnesses, by a living clergyman,
which was reported last year in the Spiritualist

SPIRITUALISM AND TIIEOSOPIIY. 223

papers. A Mr. Pierce, son of an ex-President of
the United States and long since dead, is said to
have " materialized " — that is, made for himself a
visible, tangible body, at the house of a certain
American medium, and been married by a minister
summoned for the occasion, to a lady spirit who
died at the very tender age of seven months, and
who, now grown into a blooming psychic lass, was
also materialized for the ceremony ! The vows ex-
changed and the blessings given, the happy couple
sat at table with invited friends, and, after drinking
a toast or two, vanished — dress-coat, white gloves,
satin, lace and all — into thin air ! This you will
call the tomfoolery of Spiritualism, and you will be
right ; but, nevertheless, it serves to show hov/
clear and definite, not to say brutally materialist,
are the views of the other world order which have
replaced the old, vague dread that weighed us
down with gloomy doubts. Up to a certain point,
this state of mind is a decided gain, but I am sorry
to say Spiritualists have passed that and become
dogmatists. Little by little a body of enthusiasts
is forming, who would throw a halo of sanctity
around the medium, and, by doing away with test
conditions, invite to the perpetration of gross frauds.
Mediums actually caught red-handed in trickery,
with their paraphernalia of traps, false panels,
wigs and puppets about them, have been able to
make their dupes regard them as martyrs to the
rage of sceptics, and the damning proofs of their
guilt as having been secretly supplied by the un-

224 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

believers themselves to strike a blow at their holy
cause ! The voracious credulity of a large body of
Spiritualists has begotten nine-tenths of the dis-
honest tricks of mediums. As Mr. Crookes truly
observed, in his preliminary article in the Quarterly
Journal of Science, " In the countless number of
recorded observations I have read, there appear to
be few instances of meetings held for the express
purpose of getting the phenomena under test con-
ditions." Still, though this is true, it is also most
certain that within the past thirty-two years in-
quirers into the phenomena have been vouchsafed
thousands upon thousands of proofs that they occur
under conditions quite independent of the physical
agency of the persons present, and that intelligence,
sometimes of a striking character, is displayed in
the control of the occult force or forces producing
the phenomena. It is this great reserve of test fact
upon which rests, like a rock upon its base, the in-
vincible faith of the millions of Spiritualists. This
body of individual experiences is the rampart
behind which they entrench themselves whenever
the outside world of sceptics looks to see the whole
" delusion " crumble under the assault of some new
hnna critic, or the shame of the latest exposure of
false mediumship or tricking mediums. It ought
by this time to have been discovered that it is
worse than useless to try to ridicule away the
actual evidence of one's senses, or to make a man
who has seen a heavy weight self-lifted and sus-
pended in air, or writing done without contact, or

, SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 225

a human form melt before his eyes, believe any
theory that all mediumist phenomena are due
to " muscular contraction," " expectant attention,"
or " unconscious cerebration." It is because of
their attempts to do this that men of science, as a
body, are regarded with such compassionate scorn
by the experienced psychologist. Mr. Wallace
tells us that, after making careful inquiry, he has
never found one man who, after having acquired a
good personal knowledge of the chief phases of the
phenomena, has afterwards come to disbelieve in
their reality. And this is my own experience also.
Some have ceased to be " Spiritualists " and turned
Catholics, but they have never doubted the reality
of the phenomena. It will be a happy day, a day
to be hailed with joy by every lover of true science,
when our modern professors shall rid themselves of
the conceited idea that knowledge was born in our
days, and question in a humble spirit the records of
archaic science.

We have seen that the existence of a force-
current has been proved by the experiments of Dr.
Hare and Mr. Crookes ; so we need trouble our-
selves no further with the many crude conjectures
about table-moving, chair-lifting, and the raps, being
the result of the muscular energy of the medium or
the visitor, but pass on to notice some of the forms in
which this force has displayed its dynamic energies.
These may be separated into phenomena indicating
intelligence and conveying information, and purely
physical manifestations of energy. Of the former

225 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY,

class the one demanding first place is the so-called
" spirit-rap." By these simple signals the whole
modern movement called Spiritualism was ushered
in. These audible concussions vary in degree from
the sound of a pin-head ticking to that of blows by
a hammer or bludgeon powerful enough to shatter
a mahogany table. The current of psychic force
producing them seems to depend upon the state of
the medium's system, in combination with the
electric and hygrometric condition of the atmo-
sphere. Should either of these be unpropitious, the
raps, if heard at all, are faint; with both in harmony,
they are loudest and most persistent. Of themselves
these rapping phenomena are sufficiently wonderful;
but they become a hundred-fold more so when we
find that through them communications can be
obtained from intelligences claiming to be our dead
friends ; communications which often disclose
secrets known to no other person present except
the inquirer; and even, in rare cases, giving out
facts which no one then in the room was aware of,
and which had to be verified later by consulting
old records or distant witnesses. A more beautiful
form of the rap is the sound of music, as of a cut-glass
vessel struck, or a silver bell, heard either under the
medium's hand or in the air. Such a phenomenon
has been often noticed by the Rev. Stainton Moses,
of University College, London, in his own house ;
and Mr. Alfred R. Wallace describes- it as occurring
in the presence of Miss Nichol, now Mrs. Volck-
mann, at Mr. Wallace's own house. An empty

SFIRITUALTSM AND THEOSOPHY. 227

wine-glass was put upon a table and held by Miss
Nichol and a Mr. Humphrey, to prevent any vibra-
tion. Mr. Wallace tells us that, " after a short
interval of silence an exquisitely delicate sound, as
of tapping a glass, was heard, which increased to
clear silvery notes like the tinkling of a glass bell.
These continued in varying degrees for some
minutes," &c. Again, Mr. Wallace says that when
a German lady sang some of her national songs,
"most delicate music, like a fairy music-box,
accompanied her throughout. . . . This was in
the dark, but hands were joined all the time."
Several persons in the present audience have
been permitted by Madame Blavatsky to hear
these dulcet fairy-bells tinkle since she came to
Simla. But they have heard them in full light,
without any joining of hands, and in whatsoever
place she chose to order them. The phenomenon
is the same as that of Miss Nichol, but the con-
ditions are very different ; and of that I shall
have something to say further on.

Mr. Crookes found the force-current extremely
variable in the same medium on different days,
and on the same day, from minute to minute,
its flow was highly erratic. In his book he gives
a number of cuts to illustrate these variations, as
well as of the ingenious apparatus he employed to
detect them.

Among many thousands of communications from
the alleged spirits that have been given to the public,
and for the most part containing only trivial

228 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

messages about family or other personal affairs, the
details of which were at least known to the in-
quirers, and which might be attributed to thought-
reading, we occasionally come across some that
need other explanation. I refer to those in which
the particulars mentioned are unknown to any one
present at the sitting. Mr. Stainton Moses records
one such — a case in which a message was given
in London, purporting to come from an old man
who had been a soldier in America, in the war
of 1 812, and to have died there. No one in
London had ever heard of such a person ; but
upon causing a search to be made in the records
of the American War Department at Washington,
the man's name was found, and full corroborative
proofs of the London message were obtained.
Not having access to books here, I am obliged to
quote from memory, but I think you will find
my facts essentially correct. In another case,
vouched for by Mr. J. M. Peebles, that gentle-
man received, either in America or at least
far away from England, a message from an
alleged spirit who said he lived and died at
York, and that if Mr. Peebles would search the
records of that ancient city, the spirit's statements
would be found strictly true. In process of time
he did visit York and searched old birth and burial
registers, and there, sure enough, he found just the
data he had been promised.

Besides communicating by the raps, the alleged
spirits have employed many other devices to

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 229

impart intelligence to the living. Such, among
others, is the independent writing of messages
upon paper laid on the floor under a table or in a
closed drawer, between the leaves of a closed book,
or on the ceiling or walls, or one's linen ; there
being in none of these cases any human hand near.
All these phenomena I have seen in full light, and
under circumstances where trickery or deception
was impossible. I have also had satisfactory ex-
perience of the rare mediumist powers of Dr.
Henry Slade, who, you recollect, was arrested on a
trumped-up charge of dishonesty in London, but
afterwards gave Zollner and his brother savants of
Leipzig, Aksakof, Boutlerof and Wagner, of St.
Petersburg, and the Grand Duke Constantine, a
series of most complete tests. It was Madame
Blavatsky and myself who sent Dr. Slade from
America to Europe in 1876. A very high personage
having ordered a scientific investigation of Spiritual-
ism, the Professors of the Imperial University of St.
Petersburg organized an experimental Committee,
and we two were specially requested by this Com-
mittee to select, out of the best American mediums,
one whom we could recommend for the test.
After much investigation we chose Dr. Slade, and
the necessary funds for his expenses having been
remitted to me, he was in due time sent abroad.
Before I would recommend him I exacted the con-
dition that he should place himself in the hands of
a Committee of the Theosophical Society for test-
ing. I purposely selected as members of that Com-

230 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. '

mittee men Avho were either pronounced sceptics or
quite unacquainted with spirituaHst phenomena.
Slade was tested thoroughly for several weeks,
and when the Committee's report * was finally
made, the following facts were certified as having
occurred. Messages were written inside double
slates, sometimes tied and sealed together, while
they either lay upon the table in full view of all,
or were laid upon the heads of members of the
Committee, or held fiat against the under surface
of the table-top, or in a Committee-man's hand,
without the medium touching it. We also saw
detached hands — that is, hands that floated or
darted through the air, and had no arm or body
attached to them. These hands would clutch at
our watch-chains, grasp our limbs, touch our
hands, take the slates or other objects from us
under the table, remove our handkerchiefs from our
coat-pockets, &c. And all this, remember, in the
light, where every movement of the medium could
be as plainly seen as one that any present hearer
might make now.

Another form of signalling is the compulsory
writing of messages by a medium whose arm and
hand are controlled against his volition by some
invisible power. Not only thousands, but lakhs of
pages have been written in this way ; some of the

* A minority report was made by a sint^Ie person ; but his pre-
tended explanations were so transparently absurd and unfair that he
failed to convince any of his colleagues — even an intimate friend, a
materialist.

SPIRITUALISM AND THE OS 0 PHY. 231

subject-matter occasionally worth keeping, but the
most part valueless. Another method Is the im-
pression, by the unseen intelligence upon the sensi-
tive brain of a medium, of Ideas and words outside
his own knowledge, such as foreign languages,
names of deceased persons, the circumstances
of their death, requests as to the disposal of pro-
perty, directions for the recovery of lost docu-
ments or valuables, information about murders or
distant tragedies, of which they were the victims,
diagnoses of hidden diseases and suggestions for
remedies, &c. You will find many examples of
each of these groups of phenomena on record and
well attested.

A very interesting anecdote is related in Mr.
Dale Owen's Debatable Landy about the identifica-
tion of an old spinet, purchased at a Paris bric-a-
brac shop, by the grandson of the famous com-
poser. Bach. The details are very curious, and you
will do well to read them, though lack of time pre-
vents my entering more at length Into the subject
at present.

But, of all forms of Intelligent communication
from the other world to ours, none is to be com-
pared for startling realism with that of the audible
voice. I have heard these voices of every volume,
from the faintest whisper close to the ear, sound-
ing like the sigh of a zephyr through the trees, to
the stentorian roar that would well-nigh shake
the room and might have been heard far away
from the house. I have heard them speak to

232 SPIRITUALISM AND 7 HEOSOPIIV.

me through paper tubes, through metal trumpets,
through empty space. And in the case of the
world-famous medium, William Eddy, the voices
spoke in four languages, of which the medium knew
not a word. Of the Eddy phenomena, however, I
shall have more to say presently.

One of the prettiest — I should say the most
charming of all, but for the recollection of the
fairy-like music — of mediumist phenomena is the
bringing of fresh, dew-begemmed flowers, plants and
vines, and of living creatures such as birds, gold-
fish and butterflies, into closed rooms while the
medium was in no state to bring them herself. I
have myself, in friends' houses, held the hands of a
medium, whom I had first put into a bag that was
fastened about her neck with a sealed drawing-
string, and with no confederate in the house, have
had the whole table covered with flowers and plants,
and birds came fluttering into my lap, goodness
knows whence. And this with every door and
window fastened, and sealed with strips of paper
so that no one could enter from the outside. These
phenomena happened mostly in the dark, but once
I saw a tree-branch brought in the day light. I
was present once at a seance in America when a
gentleman asked that the "spirits " might bring him
a heather-plant from the Scottish moors, and sud-
denly a heather-plant, pulled up by the roots and
with the fresh soil clinging to them, was dropped
on the table directly in front of him.

A highly interesting example of the non-intelli-

SPIRITUALISM AND THE OS 0 PHY. 233

gent class of phenomena came under my notice in
the course of our search after a medium to send
to Russia. A lady medium, a Mrs. Youngs, had
a reputation for causing a pianoforte to rise from
the floor and sway in time to her inlaying upon the
instrument. Madame Blavatsky and myself went
one evening to see her, and what happened was
reported in the New York papers of the following
day. As she .sat at the piano playing, it certainly
did tilt on the two outer legs — those farthest from
her — and, with the other two raised six or eight
inches from the ground, move in time to the music.
Mrs. Youngs then went to one end of the piano, and,
laying a single finger against the under side of the
case, lifted the tremendous weight w^ith the greatest
ease. If any of you care to compute the volume of
psychic force exerted, try to lift one end of a 7J
octave piano six inches from the floor. To test the
reality of this phenomenon I had brought with me
a raw Qgg, which I held in the palm of my hand and
pressed it lightly against the under side of the piano
case at one end. I then caused the medium to lay
the palm of one of her hands against the back of
mine that held the egg, and told her to command
the piano to rise. A moment's pause only ensued,
when, to my surprise," our end of the piano did
rise without so much pressure upon the egg as to
break the shell. I think that this, as a test of the
actuality of a psychic force, was almost as conclu-
sive an experiment as the water-basin and spring-
balance of Mr. Crookes. At least it was so to me ;

234 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPIIY.

for I can affirm that the medium did not press so
much as an ounce weight against the back of my
hand, and it is quite certain that but very few
ounces of pressure would have broken the thin
shell of the Q.gg.

One of the most undeniable manifestations of in-
dependent force is the raising and rhoving of a
heavy weight, without human contact. This, I, in
common with many other investigators, have wit-
nessed. Sitting at a table in the centre of my
own lighted drawing-room, I have seen the piano
raised and moved a foot away from the wall, and a
heavy leathern arm-chair run from a distant corner
towards and touch us, when no one was within
a dozen feet of either. On another occasion
my late friend and chemical teacher. Professor
Mapes, a very corpulent person, and two other
men, equally stout, were requested to seat them-
selves on a mahogany dining-table, and all were
raised from the ground, the medium merely lay-
ing one hand on the top of the table. At Mrs.
Youngs' house, on the evening before noticed, as
many persons as could sit on the top of the piano
were raised with the instrument while she was play-
ing a waltz. The records are full of instances where
rooms, or even whole houses, were caused by the
occult force to shake and tremble as though a hur-
ricane were blowing, though the air was quite still.
And we have the testimony of Lords Lindsay,
Adare, Dunraven, and other unimpeachable wit-
nesses, to the fact of a medium's body having

SPIRIIUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 235

floated around the room and sailed out of a window,
seventy feet from the ground, and into another
window. This was in an obscure light ; but I have
seen in the twilight a person raised out of her
chair until her head was as high as the globes of
the chandelier, and then gently lowered down
again.

You see I am telling you stories so wonderful
that it is impossible for any one to fully credit them
without the corroboration of personal experience.
Believe me, I would not tell them at all—
for no man desires to have his word doubted —
unless I knew perfectly well that such phenomena
have been seen hundreds of times in nearly every
land under the sun, and can be seen by anyone
who will give time to the investigation. Despite
my disclaimer, you may think I am taking it
for granted that you are quite as well satisfied as
myself of the reality of the mediumist phenomena ;
but I assure you that is not the case. I am alw ays
keeping in mind, that, no matter what respect an
auditor may have for my integrity and my intellig-
ence, no matter how plainly he may see that I can
have no ulterior motive to deceive him — yet he
cannot believe without having himself had the
same demonstrative evidences. He will — because
he must— reflect that such things as these are
outside the usual experience of men ; and that,
as Hume puts it, it is more reasonable to believe
any man a liar than that the even course of natural
law should be disturbed. True, that assumes the

236 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

absurd premiss that the average man knows what
are the Hmitatlons of natural law; but we never con-
sider our own opinions absurd^ no matter how
others may regard them. So knowing, as I have
just remarked, that what I describe has been seen
by thousands, and may be seen by thousands more
at any time, I proceed with my narrative as one who
tells the truth and fears no impeachment. It is a
great wonder that which we are having shown us in
our days, and, apart from the solemn interest which
attaches to the problem whether or not the dead
are communing with us, the scientific importance
of these facts cannot be undervalued. From the
first — that is to say, throughout my twenty-eight
years of observations — I have pursued my inquiry
in this spirit, believing it to be of prime impor-
tance to mankind to ascertain all that can be
learnt about man's powers and the forces of nature
about him.

I shall now relate briefly my adventures at
the Eddy homestead, in Vermont. For some
years previous to 1874, I had taken no active in-
terest in mediumist phenomena. Nothing sur-
passingly novel had been reported as occur-
ring, and the intelligence communicated through
mediums was not usually instructive enough to in-
duce one to leave his books and the company of
their great authors. But in that year it was
rumoured that at a remote village, in the valley of
the Green Mountains, an illiterate farmer and his
equally ignorant brother were being visited daily

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 237

by the " materialized " souls of the departed, who
could be seen, heard, and, in cases, touched by any
visitor. This tempting novelty I determined to
witness ; for it certainly transcended In Interest
and Importance anything ever heard of In any
age. Accordingly, In August of that year, I pro-
ceeded to Chittenden, the village In question, and,
with a single brief Intermission of ten days, re-
mained there until the latter part of October. I
hope you will believe that I adopted every possible
precaution against being befooled by village trick-
ery. The room of the ghosts was a large chamber
occupying the whole upper floor of a two-storey
wing of the house. It was perhaps twenty feet
wide by forty long — I speak from memory. Below
were two rooms, a kitchen and a pantry. The
kitchen chimney was In the gable end, of course,
and passed through the seance room to the roof
It projected Into the room two feet, and at the
right, between It and the side of the house, was a
plastered closet, with a door next to the chimney. A
window, two feet square, had been cut In the outer
wall of the closet, to admit air. Running across
this end of the large room was a narrow platform,
raised about eighteen inches from the floor, with
a step to mount by at the extreme left, and a hand-
rail or baluster, along the front edge of the platform.
Every evening, after the last meal, William Eddy,
a stout-built, square-shouldered, hard-handed far-
mer, would go upstairs, hang a thick woollen shawl
across the doorway, enter the closet and seat him-

238 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

self on a low chair that stood at the extreme end.
The visitors, who sometimes numbered forty of an
evening, were accommodated on benches placed
within a few feet of the platform. Horatio Eddy
sat on a chair in front, discoursed doleful music
on a fiddle, and led the singing — if such it might be
called, without causing Mozart to turn in his grave ;
a feeble light was given by a kerosene lamp, placed
on the floor at the end of the room farthest from
the platform, in an old drum from which both heads
had been removed. Though the light was certainly
very dim, yet it sufficed to enable us to see if any-
one left his seat, and to distinguish through the
gloom the height and costumes of the visitors from
the other world. At a first sitting this was difficult,
but practice soon accustomed one's eyes to the con-
ditions.

After an interval of singing and fiddle-scraping,
sometimes of five, sometimes of twenty or thirty
minutes, we would see the shawl stirred ; it would
be pushed aside, and out upon the platform would
step some figure. It might be a man, woman, or
child, a decrepit veteran, or a babe carried in a
woman's arms. The figure would have nothing at
all of the supernatural or ghostly about it. A
stranger entering at the other end of the room would
simply fancy that a living mortal was standing there,
ready to address an audience. Its dress would be
the one it wore in life, its face, hands, feet, gestures,
perfectly natural. Sometimes it would call the
name of the living friend it had come to meet. If

SPIRITUALISM AND 7HE0S0PHY. 239

it were strong, the voice would be of the natural
tone ; if weak, the words came in faint whispers ;
if still more feeble, there was no voice at all, but
the figure would stand leaning against the chimney
or hand-rail while the audience asked in turn — '' Is
it for me ? " and it either bowed its head or caused
raps to sound in the wall when the right one asked
the question. Then the anxious visitor would lean
forward and scan the figure's appearance in the dim
light, and often we would hear the joyful cry, " Oh I
mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter," or
what not, '' I know you." Then the weird visitor
would be seen to bow, or stretch out its hands, and
then, seeming to gather the last strength that re-
mained to it in its evanescent frame, glide into the
closet again, and drop the shawl before the hungry
gaze of the eyes that watched it. But sometimes
the form would last much longer. Several times I
saw come out of the closet an aged lady clad in
the Quaker costume, with lawn cap and kerchief
pinned across her bosom, grey dress and long house-
wifely apron, and calling her son to the platform
seat herself in a chair beside him, and, after kissing
him fondly, talk for some minutes with him in low
tones about family matters. All the while she
would be absently folding the hem of her apron
into tucks and smoothing them out again, and so
continuing the thing over and over just as — her son
told me — she was in the habit of doing while alive.
More than once, just as she was ready to disappear,
this gentleman would take her arm in his, come to

240 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

the baluster, and say that he was requested by his
old mother whom we saw there, although she had
been dead many years, to certify that it was indeed
she herself and no deception, and bid them realize
that man lives beyond the grave, and so live here
as to ensure their happiness then.

I will not attempt to give you, in these few
minutes of our lecture,' even the bare outline of my
observations during those eventful weeks. Suffice it
to say that I saw as many as seventeen of these
revenants in a single evening, and that from first to
last I saw about five hundred. There were a
certain few figures that seemed especially attached
to the medium's sphere or influence ; but the rest
were the appearances of friends of the strangers
who daily flocked to the place from the most distant
localities — some as far away as 2,000 miles. There
were Americans and Europeans, Africans and
Asiatics, Red Indians of our prairies and white
people, each wearing his familiar dress, and some
even carrying their familiar weapons. One evening
the figure of a Kurd, a man whom Madame Blavat-
sky had known in Kurdistan, stepped from the
closet, clad in his tall cap, high boots, and pictur-
esque clothes. In the shawl twisted about his waist
were thrust a curved sword and other small arms.
His hands were empty, but, after salaaming my
friend in the native fashion, lo! his right hand held
a twelve foot spear which bore below the steel head
a tuft of feathers. Now, supposing this farmer
medium to have been ever so much a cheat, whence

SPIRITUALISM AND THKOSOPHY, 241

in that secluded hamlet did he procure this Kurdish
dress, the belt, the arms and the spear at a moment's
notice? Madame Blavatsky had just arrived at
Chittenden, and neither I nor any one else knew
who she was, nor whence she came. All my
experiences there were described by me, first in a
series of letters to a New York journal, and after-
wards in book form,* and I must refer the curious
to that record for details, both as to what was seen
and what precautions I took against deception.
Two suspicions have doubtless occurred to your
minds while I have been speaking — [a) that some
confederate or confederates got access to the
medium through the closet-window, or dresses and
dolls were passed up to him from below through a
trap or sliding panel. Of course they would occur
to any one with the least ingenuity of thought.
They occurred to me; and this is what I did. I
procured a ladder, and on the outside of the house
tacked a piece of mosquito-net over the entire
window, sash, frame, and all, sealing the tack-heads
with wax, and stamping each with my signet ring.
This effectually prevented any nonsense from that
quarter. And then calling to my help an architect
and a clever Yankee Inventor and mechanician,
with those gentlemen I made a minute practical
examination of the chimney, the floor, the platform,
the rooms below, and the lumberloft overhead. We
were all perfectly satisfied that if there was any
trickery in the case it was done by William Eddy

* People fro7)i the Other World,
Q

242 SPIRITUALISM AND IHEOSOPHY.

himself without confederacy, and that if he used
theatrical dresses or properties, he must carry them
in with him. In the little narrow hole of a closet
there was neither candle, mirror, brush, wig,
clothes, water-basin, towel, cosmetic, nor any other
of the actor's paraphernalia; nor, to speak the truth,
had the poor farmer the money to buy such.
He took no fee for his seances, and visitors were
charged only a very small sum for their board and
lodging. I have sat smoking with him in his kitchen
until it was time for the seance to begin, gone with
him to the upper chamber, examined the closet
before he entered it, searched his person, and then
seen the selfsame wonderful figures come out as
usual in their various dresses. I think I may claim
to have proceeded cautiously; for Mr. A. R. Wallace,
F.R.S., quoted and eulogised my book in his recent
controversy with Professor W. B. Carpenter. Car-
penter himself sent to America to inquire into my
character for veracity, and publicly admitted it to
be unimpeachable. Professor Wagner of St. Peters-
burg reviewed the work in a special pamphlet, in
which he affirms that I fulfilled every requirement
of scientific research, and three European Psycho-
logical Societies elected me Honorary Member. It
should also be noted that four years of very re-
sponsible and intricate examinations on behalf of
the War Department — during our late American
War, the proofs of which service have been shown
by me to the Indi-an authorities — qualified me to
conduct this inquiry with at least a tolerable

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 243

certainty that I should not be imposed upon. Hav-
ing then seen all that has now been outlined to you
will you wonder that I should have been thoroughly
convinced of the reality of a large group of psychic
phenomena, for which science helplessly tries to offer
some explanation ? And can you be surprised
that whatever man of science has,since i848,seriously
and patiently investigated modern Spiritualism,
has become a convert, no matter what his religious
belief or professional bias ?

The mention of religion leads me to notice a
certain fact. While the Protestant Church has in
our time ever resolutely denied the reality of such
manifestations of occult agencies, the Church of
Rome has always admitted them to be true. In
her rubrics there are special forms of exorcism,
and Miss Laura Edmonds — the gifted daughter of
the honoured American jurist above-mentioned,
and one of the most remarkable mediums of this
modern movement, united herself with the Catholic
Church — her confessor, a Paulist Brother of New
York, driving out her obsessing " devils " in due
form after — as he told me — a terrific strucfGfle.
Mediumship was anathematized by the late Pope
himself as a dangerous device of the Evil One, and
the faithful were warned against the familiars of the
circle, as his agents for the ruin of souls. There has
appeared in France, within the past few years, a
series of books by the Chevalier des Mousseaux,
highly applauded by the Catholic prelates, especially
designed to collate the most striking proofs of the

244 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

demoniac ^.^^wcy in the phenomena. They are all
valuable repositories of psychic facts, one especially,
Les Moejirs et Pratiques des Demons, which every
student of Occultism should read. The industrious
author, of course, convinces no one but Catholics as
to his premisses, but his facts are most welcome and
suggestive. Though there is not a grain of religious
orthodoxy in me, and though I do not in the least
sympathize with the demoniacal theory, yet I find,
after learning what I have learnt of Asiatic psycho-
logical science, that the Catholics are much nearer
right in recognizing and warning against the dangers
of mediumship, than the Protestants in blindly deny-
ing the reality of the phenomena. Mediumship is
a peril indeed, and the last thing I should wish would
be to see one in whom I was interested become a
medium. The Hindus — who have known these
phenomena from time immemorial — give the most
appropriate name of bJiuta dak, or demons' post, to
these unfortunates. I do sincerely hope that sooner
or later the experience of India in this matter will be
studied, and that if mediumship is to be encouraged
at all, it will be under such protective restriction
as the ancient Sybils enjoyed in the temples,
under the watchful care of initiated priests. This
is not the language of a Spiritualist, nor am I one.
In the reality of the phenomena, and the existence
of the psychic force, I do most unreservedly believe;
but here my concurrence wath the Spiritualists ends.
For more than twenty years I was of their opinion,
and shared, with Mr. Owen and Mr. Wallace, the

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 245

conviction that the phenomena could not be attri-
buted to any other agency than that of the departed
ones. I could not understand how the intelligence
behind the manifestations could be otherwise ac-
counted for, especially that shown in such cases as
I have mentioned, where the facts related were un-
known to any one at the seance, and only verified
long afterwards in distant countries. But until
meeting Madame Blavatsky at the Eddys', I had not
even heard of Asiatic Occultism as a science. The
tales of travellers and the stories of the Arabian
Nights I set down to fanciful exaggeration, and all
that was printed about Indian jugglers, and the
powers of ascetics, seemed but accounts of success-
ful prestidigitations. I now look back to that
meeting as the most fortunate event of my life ; for
it made light shine in all the dark places, and sent
me out on a mission to help to revive Aryan Occult
science, which grows more absorbingly interesting
every day. It is my happiness to not only help to
enlarge the boundaries of Western science by show-
ing where the secrets of nature and of man may be
experimentally studied, and to give Anglo-Indians
a greater respect for the subject nation they rule
over, but also to aid in kindling in the bosoms of
Indian youths a due reverence for their glorious
ancestry, and a desire to imitate them in their noble
achievements in science and philosophy. This, my
friends, is the sole cause of our coming to India ;
this explains our affectionate relations with the
people, our respect for their real Yogis. Each of

246 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

you looks forward to the day when you will return
to your English home : our honrie is here, and here
we mean to end our days.

The handbills announce me as the President of
the Theosophical Society ; and you arc gathered here
to learn what Theosophy is. and what are its
relations with Spiritualism.

Let me say, then, that in the sense given to it by
those who first used it, the word means divine
wisdom, or the knowledge of divine things. The
lexicographers handicap the idea with the suggestion
that it meant the knowledge of God, the deity
before their minds being a personal one ; but such
was not the intention of the early Theosophists.
Essentially, a Theosophical Society is one which
favours man's original acquisition of knowledge
about the hidden things of the universe, by the
education and perfecting of his own latent powers.
Theosophy differs as widely from philosophy as it
does from theology. It has been truly said that, in
investigating tlie divine nature and attributes,
philosophy proceeds entirely by the dialectic
m.ethod, employing as the basis of its investigation
the ideas derived from natural reason ; theology,
still employing the same method, superadds to the
principles of natural reason those derived from
authority and revelation. Theosophy, on the con-
trary, professes to exclude all dialectical process,
and to derive its whole knowledge of God from
direct intuition and contemplation. This Theo-
sophy dates from the highest antiquity of v/hich any

SPIRITUALTSM AND THEOSOPHY. 247

records are preserved, and every original founder
of a religion was a seeker after divine wisdom
by the theosophic process of self- illumination.
Where do we find in our day the facilities for
pursuing this glorious study ? Where are the
training schools worthy to be successors of those
of the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria, the Hiero-
phants of Egypt, the Theodidaktoi of Greece, or
— more especially — the Rishis of Aryavarta, noblest
of all initiates, save only the stainless, the illumin-
ated Gautama Buddha ?

Think for a moment what this theosophical
study exacts of a man who would really penetrate
the mysteries and become a true ilhnninatus. The
lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, the prejudices of
birth, race, creed (so far as it creates dogmatism),
must all be put aside. The body must be made
the convenience, instead of the despot, of the
higher self. The prison-bars of sense that incar-
cerate the man of matter must be unlocked, and
while living In and being a factor In the outer
vv'orld, the Theosophist must be able to look into,
enter, act in, and return from, the innerworld, fraught
with divine truth. Are there — were there ever —
such men, such demigods rather let us say ? There
were ; there are. The legends of the past may
seem to us tinged with error, wild and fantastic
even ; but, nevertheless, such men as these existed
and displayed their powers, in many countries, at
various epochs. And nowhere more than in India,
this blessed land of the Sun — now so poor,

248 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPIIY.

Spiritless, famished and degraded. This was the
home of ancient Theosophy ; here — upon these
very Himalayan mountains that tower so high
yonder — lived and taught the men who won the
prize of divine knowledge ; whose wisdom — a
fertilizing stream — flowed through Grecian and
Egyptian channels towards the West. Believe me
or not, as you will, I am fully persuaded that there
still linger among these fastnesses, out of the
poisoned moral atmosphere of this nineteenth-
century social life, safe from the blight and perse-
cution of bigotry and intolerant modern supersti-
tion, safe from the cruel malice of scepticism, — those
who are true Theosophists.. Neither pessimist nor
optimist, I am not satisfied that our race is doomed
to destruction, present or future, nor that the moral
sense of society can be kept undiminished without
constant refreshment from the parent fount. That
fount I conceive to be Theosophical study and per-
sonal illumination, and I regard him as a bene-
factor to his kind who points out to the sceptical,
the despairing, the world-weary, the heart-hungry,
that the vanities of the world do not satisfy the
soul's aspirations, and that true happiness can only
be acquired by interior self-development, purifica-
tion and enlightenment. It is not in accordance
with the abstract principles of justice that the world
should be left entirely without such exemplars of
spiritual wisdom. I do not believe it ever was, or
ever will be.

To him who takes up this course of effort, the

SPIRITUALISM AND TIIEOSOPHY. 249

phenomena of medlumshlp are transcendently Im-
portant, for they usher him into the realm of the
Unseen, and show him some of the weirdest secrets
of our human nature. Along with mediumship he
studies vital magnetism, its laws and phenomena,
and the Odyle of Baron Reichenbach, which to-
gether show us the real nature and polarities of this
force, and the fact that it seems to be akin to the
one great force pervading all Nature. Further
proof he draws from Buchanan's psychometry, and
from experiments with those whom he finds to be
endowed with the psychometrical faculty. If there
are any here to whom the word is new, let me ex-
plain that psychometry is a name given by the
modern discoverer to a certain power, possessed by
about one person in four, to receive intuitive im-
pressions of the character of the writer of a letter,
or the painter of a picture, by direct contact with
the manuscript or painting. We are all of us con-
stantly leaving the impress of our character upon
everything we touch, as the loadstone imparts some
of its properties to every needle it is rubbed against.
A subtle something — magnetism, or vital fluid, or
psychic force — constantly exudes from us. We
leave it on the ground, and our dog finds us ; on our
clothing, and the slaver's blood-hound sniffs the
scent and tracks the poor runaway to his hiding-
place. We saturate with it the walls of our houses,
and a sensitive psychometer, upon entering our
drawing-room, can unerringly tell, before seeing the
family, whether that is a happy home or one of strife.

250 SPIRITUALISM AND 7 HE OS 0 PHY,

We are surrounded by it as a sensitive vapour, and
when we meet each other we silently take in our
impression of our mutual congeniality or antipathy.
Women have this sense more than men, and many
are the instances where a wife's prophetic intuition,
unheeded and ridiculed by the husband in the case
of some new acquaintance, has afterwards been
recalled, with regret that it should have been dis-
regarded. Good psychometers can even take from
any fragment of inanimate matter, such as a bit of
an old building, or a shred of an old garment, a
vivid impression of all the scenes of its history.
In its highest manifestation psychometry becomes
true clairvoyance, and, when that soul sight is
indeed opened, the eye within us that never grows
lustreless shows us the arcana of the unseen
universe.

Theosophy shows the student that evolution is a
fact, but that it has not been partial and incomplete,
as Darwin's theory makes it. As there has been an
evolution in physical nature, the crown and flower
of which is physical man, so there has been a
parallel evolution in the realm of spirit. The out-
come of this is the psychic or inner man ; and, just
as in this visible nature about us we see myriads of
forms lower than ourselves, so the Theosophist
finds in the te?'ra incognita of the physicist — the
realm of the " unknowable " — countless minor
psychical types, with man at the top of the ascend-
ing series. Physicists know of the elements only
in their chemical or dynamiic relations and proper-

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY, 251

ties ; but he who has mastered the Occult Sciences
finds, dweUing in fire, air, earth and water, a sub-
human order of beings, some inimical, some favour-
able to man. He not only comes to a knowledge
of them, but also to the power of controlling them.
The folk-lore of the world has embalmed many
truths about this power, which is none the less a
fact because the modern biologist rejects and ridi-
cules it. You who come from Ireland or the Scot-
tish Highlands know that these things exist. I do
not surmise this ; I knozv it. I speak thus calmly and
boldly about the subject, because I have met these
proficients of Asiatic Occultism and seen them
exercise their power. This is why I ceased to call
myself a Spiritualist in 1874, and why, in 1875, I
united with others to found a Theosophical Society,
to promote the study of these natural phenomena.
The most wonderful facts of mediumship I have
seen produced at will, and in full daylight, by one
who had learnt the secret sciences in India and
Eg3'pt. Under such circumstances, I have seen
showers of roses made to fall in a room ; letters from
people in far countries to drop from space into
my lap ; heard sweet music, coming from afar upon
the air, grow louder and louder until it was in the
room, and then die away again, out in the still
atmosphere, until it was no more. I have seen
writing made to appear upon paper and slates laid
upon the floor, drawings upon the ceiling beyond
any one's reach, pictures upon paper without the
employment of pencil or colour, articles duplicated

252 SPTRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

before my very eyes, a living person instantly dis-
appear out of my sight, jet black hair cut from a
fair-haired person's head. I have had absent friends
and distant scenes shown me in a crystal ; and, in
America, more than a hundred times, upon opening
letters upon various subjects comJng to me by the
common post, from correspondents in all parts
of the world, have found inside, written in their own
familiar hand, messages to me from men in India
who possess the Theosophical knowledge of natural
law. Nay, upon one occasion, I even saw sum-
moned before me as perfectly " materialized " a
figure as any that ever stalked out of William
Eddy's cabinet of marvels. If it is not strange that
the Spiritualist, who sees mediumist phenomena,
but know^s nothing of Occult science, should believe
in the intervention of spirits of the dead, is it any
stranger that I, after receiving so many proofs of
what the trained human will can accomplish, should
be a Theosophist and no longer a Spiritualist ? I
have not even half exhausted the catalogue of
proofs vouchsafed to me during the last five years
as to the reality of Asiatic psychological science.
But I hope I have enumerated enough to show you
that there are mysteries in India worth seeking, and
men here who are far more acquainted with Nature's
Occult forces than either of those much-initialed
gentlemen who set themselves up for professors
and biologists.

It will be asked what evidence I offer that the
intelligent phenomena of the mediums are not to

SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. 253

be ascribed to our departed friends. In reply, I
ask what uninipeachable evidence there is that
they are. If it can be shown that the soul of the
living medium can, unconsciously to his physical
self, ooze out, and, by its elastic and protean nature,
take on the appearance of any deceased person
whose image it sees in a visitor's memory ; if all
the phenomena can be produced at will by an
educated psychologist ; if, in the ether of science —
the Akasa of the Hindus, the Anima Mundi of the
Theosophists, the Astral Light of the Kabalists —
the images of all persons and events, and the vibra-
tions of every sound, are eternally preserved — as
these Occultists affirm and experimentally prove —
if all this be true, then why is it necessary to call in
the spirits of the dead to explain what may be
done by the living ? So long as no alternative
theory was accessible, the Spiritualists held im-
pregnable ground against materialist science ;
theirs was the only possible way to account for
what they saw. But, given the alternative, and •
shown the resources of psychology and the nature of
the unseen universe, you see the Spiritualists are
at once thrown upon the defensive, without the
ability to silence their critics. The casual observer
would say it is impossible, for instance, for that
aged Quaker lady's figure to be anything but her
own returning soul — that her son could not have
been mistaken, and that, if there were any doubt,
otherwise, her familiar knowledge of their family
matters, and even her old habit of alternately plait-

254 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

ing and smoothing out her lawn apron, identify her
amply. But the figure did nothing and said no-
thing that was not fixed in the son's memory, —
indelibly stamped there, however long the dormant
pictures might have been obscured by fresher
images. And the medium's body being entranced
and his active vitality transferred to his inner self,
or "double," that double could make itself appear
under the guise of the dead lady, and catch and
comment UDon the familiar incidents it found in
the son's magnetic atmosphere. This will be hard
for you to comprehend ; for our Western scientific
discoveries have not as yet crossed the threshold of
this hidden world of force. But progress is the law
of human thought, and we are now so near the
verge of the chasm that divides physical from
spiritual science, that it will not be long before we
shall bridge it. Let this stand as a prophecy ; if you
bide patiently you will see it fulfilled. This, then,
is the present attitude of parties. The promulga-
tion of our views, and of many reports by eye-
witnesses of things done by members of the
Theosophical Society, has been causing great talk
all over the world. A large number of the most
intelligent Spiritualists have joined us, and are
giving their countenance to work. Groups of our
sympathizers have organized themselves into
branches in many different countries. Even here,
in Simla, there has sprung up the nucleus of what
will be an Anglo-Indian branch. No country in
the world affords so wide a field as India for

SPIRITUALISM AND THE 0 SO PHY. 255

psychological study. What we Europeans call
animal magnetism has been known here, and prac-
tised in its highest perfection, for countless centuries.
The Hindus know equally well the life-principle in
man, animal and plant. All over India, if search
were but made, you would find in the possession of
the natives many facts that it is most important for
Europe and America to know. And you, gentle-
men of the civil and military branches of the public
service, are the proper persons to undertake the
work, with Hindu help. Be just and kind to them
and they will tell you a thousand things which they
now keep as profound secrets. Our policy is one
of general conciliation and co-operation for the
discovery of truth. Some tale-bearer has started
the report that our Society is preaching a new
religion. This is false. The Society has no more
a religion of its own than the Asiatic, the Geogra-
phical, or the Astronomical Society. As those
Societies have their separate sections, each devoted
to some speciality of research, so have we. We
take in persons of all religions and of every race,
and treat all with equal respect and impartiality.
We have royal, noble, and plebeian blood among
us. Edison is a member of ours, and Crookes, and
Wallace, and Camille Flammarion, and Lord Lind-
say, and Lane-Fox, and Baron du Potet, and the
octogenarian Cahagnet, and scores of men of
similar intellectual calibre. We have but one
passionate and consuming ambition — that of learn-
ing what man is, what nature is. Are there any

256 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY.

here who sympathize with these aspirations, any
who feel within their hearts the glow of true man-
hood— any who put a higher value upon divine
wisdom than upon the honours and rewards of the
lower life ? Come then, brother dreamers, and let
us combine our efforts and our good-will. Let us
see if we cannot win happiness for ourselves in
striving to benefit others. Let us do what we can
to rescue from the oblivion of centuries that price-
less knowledge of divine things which we call
TliEOSOrHY.

INDIA: PAST, PRESENT, AND

FUTURE.*

THE PAST.

When we look over the accounts that have been
written within our own modern historical period
about the migrations of peoples, the rise and fall of
empires, the characters of great men, the relative
progress of science, of the arts, of literature, of phil-
osophy, and religion ; and when we see how the
positive assertions of one writer are denied point-
blank by another, and then the facts of both proved
false by a third who comes after them, is it too much
to say that history is, for the most part, a system of
bold lying and ignorant mis-statement? I think not.
And I am quite sure that out of all the historians
who have appeared during this epoch that I have
mentioned, hardly one can be acquitted, or will be
acquitted by posterity, of Incompetence or of some-
thing worse. Of all the untrustworthy historians,
the worst Is he who writes In the Interest of some
one religion against the religions of others. It
would seem as though, no matter what his creed,
he considered it a pious duty to lie as much "as

* A Lecture delivered at Amritsar, 29th October, iSSo.

R

258 INDIA : PAS T, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

possible for the glory of his particular God. A
similar blight is seen resting upon the consciences
of political historians, though not so fatally ; for if
their party interests are but cared for, they can
afford to be, in a measure, fair in other directions.
It seems impossible, therefore, to gather any idea
of either Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Assyrian,
European, or American history without reading all
the historians together and extracting the truth out
of the clash and conflict of error.

It will not be required that I should give, in the
very short time for which I shall detain you,
either a list of the historians or specimen extracts
from their works, upon which I have based an
opinion shared by many of the ablest com-
mentators. Suffice it to say that the European
historiographers have never had until within a very
recent period — hardly more than a century —
any materials for writing even the most meagre
outline of Aryan history. Until Sir William
Jones and his compeers, and the Frenchman
Burnouf, led the way into the splendid garden of
Sanskrit literature ; until the astonished eyes
of the West saw its glorious flowers of poesy,
its fruits of metaphysics and of philosophy, its
crystalline rivulets of science, its magnificent
structures of philology ; no one dreamed that
the world had had any history worth speaking of
before the times of the Greek and Roman civil-
izations. Western ideas of Egyptian, Persian,
Babylonian, Chinese, and Indian achievements —

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 259

physical, Intellectual, and moral — were as hazy
as a fog. Like the wayfarer who tries, with the
help of the street gas-lamps and the lanterns of
his servants, to pick his way through London
streets, when one of those dense fogs of theirs turns
noon into dark night, the historians were groping
after facts through the mists of their own ignor-
ance and religious prejudice. You may look
through any great library you please, and you will
find there whole shelves of authors who have tried
their best to prove that everything has happened
within the last 6,000 years. You will see some not
ashamed or afraid to say that Asia derived her re-
ligious ideas, her industries, and her very language,
from the Jews or early Christians; you can find books
which try to prove that Sanskrit is a derivative from
the Hebrew. You can also read arguments from
Christian writers to show that the parental resem-
blance of Hindu mythology to Biblical stories is due
to the fact that St. Thomas, one of the alleged dis-
ciples of Jesus, came to India and preached his re-
ligion here ! The theory that Aryavarta was the
cradle of European civilization, the Aryans the pro-
genitors of the Western peoples, and their literature
the source and spring of all Western religions and
philosophies, is comparatively a thing of yesterday.
Professor Max Miiller and a few other Sanskritists of
our generation have been bringing about this change
in Western ideas. Let us hope that before many
more years roll by, we may know the whole
truth about Aryan civihzation, and that your

26o INDIA'. PAS 7 PRESENT, AND FUTURE,

ancestors (and ours) will be honoured according to
their deserts. The pride of the modern world may
receive a shock ; but the ancients will be vindicated,
and the cause of truth advanced.

The fact will then appear, far more distinctly
than even now, that long before the first page of
the Bible was written, generations before the Jews
had a nationality to boast of, before the foundations
of Babylon were laid, or the first stone of the
Egyptian pyramids had been hewn — which,
according to Bunsen and Boeckh, must have
been more than 5,700 years B.C. — the Aryans
were enjoying a splendid civilization, and had per-
fected a grammar and language with which none
other can compare. If asked to prove my words,
I may do so by propounding a question. To what
age of the world's history must the beginnings of
the Egyptian State, the monarchy of Mena, the
founder of Egypt, be carried back ? Those most
interested in the solution of this problem hesitate
even as to the duration of IManetho's dynasties —
from Mena to the last Pharaoh — the most eminent
modern Egyptologists not daring to assign it a
more recent period than between 5,000 and 6,000
years B.C. And what do they find on the very
threshold of Egyptian history, further back than
which Western history cannot penetrate? They find
a State of the most marvellous civilization, a State
already so advanced that in contemplating it one
has to repeat with Renan, " one feels giddy at the
very idea {on est pris de vertlge),'' and with Brugsch,

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 261

*' there are no ages of stone, bronze and iron in
Egypt. . . . We must openly acknowledge
the fact that, up to this time at least, Egypt throws
scorn upon these assumed periods." And now,
Egyptian history and civilization being the most
ancient we have, and this history picturing to us,
nearly 8,000 years ago, a people already highly
civilized, not in the material sense alone, as Brugsch
tells us, but in social and political order, morality
and religion, the next question would be why we
should say that India and not Egypt is the older?
My reason may seem at first sight paradoxical ;
yet, nevertheless, I answer — because nothing is
knoivn of India, 8,000 years ago. When I say
nothing is known, I mean known by its, the Western
nations, for the Brahmins have their own chronology,
and no one has the means of proving that their
calculations are exaggerated. But we Europeans
know nothing, or at least have known nothing
of it until now ; but have good reason to more
than suspect that India, 8,000 years ago, sent
a colony of emigrants who carried their arts and
high civilization into what is now known to us as
Egypt. This is what Brugsch Bey, the most
modern as well as the most trusted Egyptologist
and antiquarian, says on the origin of the old
Egyptians. Regarding these as a branch of the
Caucasian family, having close affinity with the
Indo-Germanic races, he insists that they "migrated
from Asia, long before historic memory, and crossed
that bridge of nations, the Isthmus of Suez, to find

262 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

a new fatherland on the Banks of the Nile. . . ."
The Egyptians came, according to their own records,
from a mysterious land (now shown to lie on the
shore of the Indian Ocean), the sacred Punt ; the
original home of their gods — who followed thence
after their people, who had abandoned them, to the
valley of the Nile, led by Amon, Hor, and Hathor.
This region was the Egyptian " Land of the Gods "
— Pa-NUTER, in old Egyptian — or Holy-land, and
now proved beyond any doubt to have been quite
a different place than the " Holy Land " of Sinai.
By pictorial and hieroglyphic inscriptions found
(and interpreted) on the walls of the temple of the
Queen Hashtop, at Der-el-bahri, we see that this
Puiit can be no other than India. For many ages
the Egyptians traded with their old homes, and
the reference here made by them to the names of
the Princes, of Punt and its fauna and flora, especi-
ally the nomenclature of various precious woods to
be found only in India, leave us scarcely room for
the smallest doubt that the old civilization of Egpyt
is the direct outcome of that of the still older India,
most probably of the Isle of Ceylon, which was in
prehistoric days part and parcel of the great
Continent, as geologists tell us.

So then we see that thousands of years before a
single spark of civilization had appeared in Europe,
before the doors of a school had been opened,
those great Aryan progenitors of ours were learned,
polite, philosophical, and nationally as well as in-
dividually great. The people were not, as now,

INDIA : PA^T, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 263

irrevocably walled in by castes ; they were free to
rise to the highest social dignities, or sink to the
lowest positions, according to the inherent qualities
they might possess.

If there were great philosophers in those days, so
also were there great philologists, physicians,
musical composers, sculptors, poets, statesmen,
warriors, architects, manufacturers, merchants. In
the Chatusashthikala Nirnaya, of Vatsayana, are
mentioned sixty-four different professions that were
followed in the Vedic period, a fact which shows that
not only the actual comforts, but also the luxuries
and amusements, of a civilized community were
then common. We have the enforced testimony
of many Christian authors, whom certainly no one
will suspect of partiality for India, that neither in
what the West calls ancient, nor in modern times,
have there been produced such triumphs of the
human intellect as by the Aryans. I might fill a
separate book with extracts of this kind, but it is un-
necessary just now. I will cite only one witness —
Mr. Ward, a Baptist missionary of Serampur, and
author of a well-known work on " Indian History,
Literature, and Mythology." " The grammars," he
says, " are very numerous, and reflect the highest
credit on the ingenuity of their authors. Indeed,
in philology, the Hindus have perhaps excelled
both the ancients (meaning, no doubt, the Greeks
and Romans) and the moderns. Their dictionaries,"
according to him, " also do the highest credit to
the Hindu learned men, and prove how highly the

264 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

Sanskrit was cultivated in former periods." The
Hindu sages "did not permit even the miUtary
art to remain unexamined .... it is very-
certain that the Hindu kings led their own armies '
to the combat, and that they were prepared for this
important employment by a military education ;
nor is it less certain that many of these monarchs
were distinguished for the highest valour and mili-
tary skill." After recounting many important facts,
Mr. Ward says : " From the perusal of the preced-
ing pages it will appear evident that the Hindu
philosophers were, unquestionably, men of deep
erudition, and that they attracted universal
homage and applause ; some of them had more
than a thousand disciples or scholars." And, in
concluding the fourth volume of his work, he
pays your ancestors this merited tribute : " No
reasonable person will deny to the Hindus of
former times the praise of very extensive learning.
The variety of subjects upon which they wrote
proves that almost every science was cultivated
amonc: them. The manner also in which thev
treated these subjects proves that the Hindu
learned men yielded the palm of learning to
scarcely any other of the ancients. The more
their philosophical works and law books are
studied, the more will the inquirer be convinced
of the depth of wisdom possessed by the authors."

Now, I have been often asked by those who
affirm the superiority in scientific discovery of
modern nations, whether the Ar}'ans or their con-

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND EUTURE. 265

temporaries could show anything so splendid as
the electric telegraph and the steam-engine. My
answer is that the properties of steam are believed
to have been known in those ancient days ; that
printing was used at a period of most remoteantiquity
in China ; that the Aryans had, as certain of
their descendants now have, a system of telegraphy
that enables conversation to be carried on at any dis-
tance, and requires neither poles, wires, nor pots of
chemicals. You wish to know what that is ? I will
tell you, and tell it to the very beards of those
ignorant, half-educated people who make fun of
sacred things, and are not ashamed to revile their
forefathers upon the strength of some superficial
smattering of English education they have managed
to pick up. Your ancient Yogis could, and all who
have acquired a certain proficiency in occult science
can even now, thus talk with each other. Some of
you may honestly doubt it, still it is true ; as any
author who has written on Yoga, and every one
who has practised it, from the ancient Rishis down
to some living Yogis of your day, will tell you.

And then the Aryans — if we may believe that
good man, the late Bramachari Bawa — knew a
branch of science about which the West is now
speculating much, but has I'earnt next to nothing.
They could navigate the air, and not only navigate
but fight battles in it, like so many war-eagles
combating for the dominion of the clouds. To be
so perfect in aeronautics, as he justly says, they
must have known all the arts and sciences related

266 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. '

to that science, including the strata and currents of
the atmosphere, their relative temperature, humidity,
and density, and the specific gravity of the various
gases. At the Mayasabha, described in the Bharata,
he tells us, were microscopes, telescopes, clocks,
watches, mechanical singing-birds, and articulating
and speaking animals. The "Ashta Vidya " — a
science of which our modern professors have not
even an inkling — enabled its proficients to com-
pletely destroy an invading army by enveloping it
in an atmosphere of poisonous gases, filled with
awe-striking, shadowy shapes, and with awful
sounds.

The modern school of Comparative Philology
traces the migration of Aryan civilization into
Europe by a study of modern languages in com-
parison with the Sanskrit. And we have an
equally, if not still more striking means of
showing the outflow of Aryan thought towards
the West, in the philosophies and religions of
Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Northern
Europe. One has only to put side by side the
teachings of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Homer, Zeno, Hesiod, Cicero, Scaevola, Varro and
Virgil, with those of Veda Vydsa, Kapila, Goutama,
Patanjali, Kanada, Jaimini, Narada, Panini, Marichi,
and many others we might mention, to be astonished
at the identity of their conceptions — an identity that
upon any other theory than that of a derivation of
the younger philosophical schools of the West from
Uie elder ones of the East would be simply miracu-

INDTA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 267

lous. The human mind is certainly capable of evolv-
ing like ideas in different ages, just as humanity
produces for itself in each generation the teachers,
rulers, warriors and artisans it needs. But that the
views of the Aryan sages should be so identical with
those of the later Greek and Roman philosophers as
to make it seem that the latter were to the former
like the reflection of an object in a mirror to the
object itself, without an actual, physical transmis-
sion of teachers or books from the East to the
West, is opposed to common sense. And this
again corroborates our convictions that the old
Egyptians were emigrants from India. Nearly all
the famous ancient philosophers had been to Egypt
to learn her wisdom^ from Jewish Moses to Greek
Plato.

And now that we have seen — however imper-
fectly, for the theme is inexhaustible — what India
was in the olden time, and what sort of people
she held, let us move the panorama forward and
bestow a glance on the India of our own day.

THE PRESENT.

If one who loves the memory of the blessed
Aryavarta would not have his heart filled with
sorrow, he must not permit himself to dwell too
long on the past. For, as the long procession of
great men passes before his inner vision, as
he sees them surrounded with the golden light of
their majestic epochs, if he then turn to view the
spectacle presented by the India of to-day, it

268 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE,

it will be hard, though he were the most courageous
of souls, to escape a sense of crushing despair.
Where are the sages, the warriors, the giant
intellects of yore ? Where the happiness, the inde-
pendence of spirit, the self-respecting dignity, that
made an Aryan feel himself fit to rule the world,
nay, to meet the very gods on equal terms ?
Where are the cunning artificers whose taste and
skill, as exemplified in the meagre specimens that
remain, were unrivalled ? Whither are departed
the Brahmins in whose custody were all the trea-
sures of Asiatic knowledge ? Gone — all gone. Like
visions of the night, they have departed into
the mist of time. A new nation is being fabricated
out of the old material, in combination ivith innch
alloy. The India of old is a figment of the imagina-
tion, a faded picture of the memory; the India of
to-day is a stern reality that confronts and supplicates
us. The soil is here, but its fatness is diminished ;
the people remain, but, alas ! how hungry and
degenerate ! India, stripped of her once limitless
forests, that gave constant crops and abundant
fertility by regulating the rainfall, lies baking in
the blistering heat, like a naked valetudinarian too
helpless to move. The population has multiplied
without any corresponding increase of food supply ;
until starvation, once the exception, has become
almost habitual. The difference between so-called
good and so-called bad years, to at least forty millions
of toilers, is now only that in the former they are a
little less near starvation than in the latter. Crushed

INDIA I PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, 269

in heart, deprived of all hope, denied the chances of
much bettering his condition, the poor ryot, clad in
one little strip of cloth, lives on from hand to
mouth in humble, pious expectation of what to him
will be the happiest of all' hours — the one that shall
usher him into the other world. The union of the
olden days is replaced by disunion, province is
arrayed against province, race against race, sect
against sect, brother against brother. Once the
names of Arya and Aryavarta were talismans that
moved the heart of an Indian youth to its depths,
that sent the flush of blood into his cheek, that
caused his eye to glitter. Now, the demon of selfish-
ness sits athwart all noble impulse ; the struggle for
life has made men sycophants, cowards, traitors.
The brow of a once proud nation is laid in the
dust, and shame causes those who revere her
memory to avert their gaze from the sickening
spectacle of her fallen greatness. Mighty cities,
once homes and hives of population, centres
of luxury, hallowed repositories of religion and
science, have crumbled into dust ; and either the
filthy beast and carrion bird inhabit their desolate
ruins, or the very recollection of their sites is lost.
Now and then the delving archaeologist exhumes
some fragment which serves to verify the ancient
Aryan records ; but even then he mostly tries totwist
their evidence into a corroboration of some pet
thcoi-y that denies a greater antiquity than a
handful of centuries to Indian civilization.

It is not my province to deal with the political

270 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

interests involved in the full consideration of our
subject. Were I in the least competent to
handle it — which I certainly am not, after the
mere glimpse I have had of the situation, and
with the tastes and habits of a life opposed to
dabbling at all in politics — I should nevertheless
abstain. My interest in India is in her litera-
ture, her philosophy, her religion, and her science ;
it was to study these I came hither. And it is upon
glancing at these that I am constrained to express
my sorrow at finding things as they are. The
Brahmins I find engaged as clerks to Government
and to merchants, and even occupied in menial
capacities. Here and there a learned man is to be
found ; but the majority, receiving no encourage-
ment to devote their lives to abstract science or to
philosophy, have given up the custom of their fore-
fathers, and their glory is departed. Some still
linger about the temples, and repeat their slokas
and sastras in a parrot-like way ; take what stint of
dole a parsimonious and impoverished public may
fling to them, and waylay the European visitor with
out-stretched palm and the droning cry oi baksheesh!
But in their temples there are no longer any sacred
mysteries, for there are few priests who have be-
come initiated, few who even believe that there
are secrets of Nature that the ascetic can discover.
The very successors of Patanjali, Sankara, and
Kanada doubt if man has a soul, or any latent
psychic powers that can be developed. And this
fashionable scepticism taints the minds of all young

INDIA'. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, 271

India. The flower of Aryan youth are turning
materialists under the influence of European educa-
tion. Hope — the bright angel that gives joy and
courage to the human intellect — is dying out ; they
have no longer hope in the hereafter, nor in the
splendid possibilities of the present. And with-
out hope, how can there be that cheerful resigna-
tion under evils that begets perseverance and
pluck ? We have the authority of Sir Richard
Temple, late Governor of Bombay, for saying
that " modern education is shaking the Hindu
faith to its very foundation." These are the
very words he uttered not long ago, in a speech at
the University of Oxford, the pamphlet report of
which I now hold in my hand. And he mentions
as chief among the effects of that change, the for-
mation of the three great " religious sects " of the
Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Sam.aj, and — most
absurdly — the Theosophical Society, which never
was, or pretended to be, a sect ! The Arya
Samaj he does not so much as mention, though
the President of the Bombay branch — Rao Ba-
hadur Gopalrao Hurree Deshmiukh — is a member
of the Bombay Governor's Council, and the forty
or fifty branch Samajes, already founded by Daya-
nand Swami, include, perhaps, as many registered
or affiliated members as the other three societies
together. Sir Richard Temple tells the English
people that now is the time for them to send out
more missionaries, as young India is ready to turn
Christian as it were in a mass ! Now I believe this

272 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

to be a perfectly erroneous supposition. As I see it,
the young Hindus, outside the reformatory
Samajes, are losing their old religious belief, with-
out gaining, or being ready to embrace, any other.
They are becoming exactly like the great mass
of educated youth in Europe and America. In-
fluenced by the same causes, they require the same
treatment. It is Science which undermined the
foundations of Religion ; it is Science which should
be compelled to erect the new edifice. As an incom-
plete study of Nature has led to materialistic Athe-
ism,"^ so a complete one will lead the eager student
back to faith in his inner and nobler self, and in his
spiritual destiny. For there is a circle of science
as of all other things, and the whole truth can
only be learnt by going all the way round. This,
I think, is the strongest corner of the edifice of
Theosophy that we are trying to raise. Other
agitators come to the young generation claiming
authority for some book, some religious observances,
or some man as a religious guide and teacher. We
say, " We interfere with no man's creed or caste ;
we preach no dogma; we offer no article of faith. We
point to Nature as the most infallible of all divine
revelations, and to Science as the most competent
teacher of her mysteries." But the science we have
in mind is a far wider, higher, nobler science than
that of modern sciolists. Our view extends
over the visible and invisible, the familiar and un-

* Atheism, in the sense of disbelief of even the Universal
Principle.

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 273

familiar, the patent and occult sides of Nature.
In short, ours is the Aryan conception of what
science can and should be, and we point to the
Aryas of antiquity as its masters and proficients.
Young India is a blind creature whose eyes are not
yet open ; and the nursing mother of its thought
is a bedizened goddess, herself blind of one eye,
whose name is Modern Science. There is an old
proverb that "in a company of blind men, the one-
eyed man is a king," and here we see it practi-
cally exemplified. Our Western instructors know
just enough to spoil our spirituality, but not enough
to prove to us what man really is. They can draw
young India away from her old religion, but
only to plunge her into the swamp of doubt.
They can show us the ingenious mechanism of our
vital machinery, the composition of our digesting
fluids, the proportion of fluids and solids in our
frame. But Atina is an unscientific postulate, and
Psychology a species of poetry, in their eyes. Shall
v/e then say that modern education is an unmixed
blessing to India ? Look at our Indian youth and
answer. Sir Richard Temple is right in saying that
the foundations of their faith are .shaken. Shaken,
indeed, they are ; but he does not seem to perceive
the proper remedy. It is not theological Chris-
tianity, which itself is tottering before the merciless
assaults of the liberal minds within its own house-
hold. It is pre-eminently uncongenial to the
Hindu mind. No imported faith will furnish

a panacea for the spiritual disease spreading

s

274 INDTA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

on all sides. What is needed is that the Vedas
shall be once more restored to their ancient hold
upon the Indian mind. Not that they should be
accepted as a mere dead letter. Not that they
should inspire a merely tacit reverence, but an in-
telligent appreciation of their intrinsic merits. It
must be proven, not simply asserted, that the Vedas
are the fountain and source of all religions, that they
contain the indications of a science that embraces
and explains all sciences. To whom shall we look
for this vindication of their majesty? To whom
but to those who unite in themselves at once the
advantages of modern critical culture and famili-
arity with the Sanskrit literature; and, most im-
portant of all, the knowledge of the hidden mean-
ing of the Vedic allegory and symbolism ? For
the inspired Vedas are often hidden under the
visible writing, and nestle between the lines ; at
least so I have been told by those who profess
to know the truth. It is ignorance of this fact,
and the taking of the Vedas in their dead-letter
sense, that has driven thousands of the brightest
intellects into infidelity. Comparative philology
will not supply us with our interpretation ; it can
only show the dead-letter meaning of the dead-letter
text. An esteemed Fellow of our Society —
Shankar Pandurang Pandit — is doing this literal
translation work at Bombay, while many others
are busily tracing the several streams of Western
ideas back to their parent spring in the Vedas.
But modern India needs to be instructed in the

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND EUTURE. 275

vieaning of the Vedic authors ; so that this age
may acquire for itself the perfect certitude that in
those far distant as^es science was so well under-
stood as to leave no necessity for us to cast aside
as rubbish that Book of Books, at the behest of
modern self-styled "authorities" in science. An
Indian civilization resting upon the Vedas, and
other old national works, is like a strong castle
built upon rocks : an Indian civilization resting
upon Western religious ideas — patched with im-
ported ideas fitted only to the local traditions and
environments of their respective birthplaces — is but
a rickety house of cards that the first blast of
stern experience may cause to topple over. We
certainly cannot expect to see, under the totally
different conditions of modern times, an exact
reproduction of Aryan development ; but we can
count upon the new development having a strictly
national character. Whoever is a true friend of
India will make himself recognized by his desire to
nationalize her modern progress ; her enemy is he
who advocates the denationalization of her arts,
industries, lines of thought, and aspirations. There
are men of both sorts among the class who have
received the priceless blessing of education — and, I
am sorry to say, there are hundreds, if not thousands,
who are setting the pernicious example of aping
Western ways that are good only for Western people,
and of imitating Western vices that are good for no
people, among which is the excessive use of spiritu-
ous liquors. I see also everywhere a set of rich syco-

276 INDTA : FAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

phants who humbly bow the knee to every
European they meet in the hope of rcco^^nition
and reward. These poor fools do not realize that
a people intensely manly, independent and self-
respecting like the English, can only feel contempt
for those who cast aside their own dignity and self-
respect. Nor are they so dull as not to detect,
under all this mask of servile politeness, the con-
cealed scowl of hatred, and, under this fawning and
cringing, the mean lust after titles and decorations.
An Englishman honours a brave foe, and scorns a
sneaking hypocrite. Before India can hope to
make the first recuperative step up the long slope
down which she has been for many centuries
descending, her youth must learn the lesson that
true manhood is based upon self-respect. And
they must learn once more to speak the truth.
There was a time when a Hindu's word pledged to
another man, no matter whether Hindu or stranger,
was sacredly kept. English gentlemen have told
me more than once that thirty years ago one mJght
have left a lakh of rupees, uncounted, with a native
banker without taking a receipt, and be sure of not
being wronged out of a single pie. Could that be
done safely now ? Friends of mine — native gentle-
men connected with the judicial establishment —
have told me, some with moistening eyes, that
lying and perjury had of late grown so common
that magistrates could scarcely believe a word of
the testimony offered by either side unless corro-
borated. The moral tone of the legal profession

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 277

has been perceptibly raised, but the mendacity of
the general public has reached a low level. Do
you think a national resuscitation can be even
dreamt of with such a bottomless depth of moral
rottenness to lay its foundations upon ? Many of
the best friends of Aryavarta have confessed all
these things to me, and in accents of despair fore-
told the speedy ruin of everything. Some, the
other day, went so far as to say that in all the
North- West and Punjab — to say nothing of other
provinces — six men of the true patriot-hero mould
could not be found. This is not my opinion.
Some of you may recall that in all my addresses to
the Indian public I have taken a hopeful view of the
situation. I do not wish to deceive myself, or to
• deceive others ; for I hope to live and die in this land
and amiong this people. I rest my judgment of
Indian evolution upon the whole course of Aryan
evolution, not upon a fragmentary particle of it.
The new environment is evolving a new India
which, in three chief respects, is the complete
antithesis of the older one. Old India — and, in
fact, even modern India, that, let us say, of the
eighteenth century — was (i) Asiatic to the core;
(2) it had more land than cultivators ; and (3) its
soil was unexhausted. But the brand-new India
of to-day, suckling of Manchester, Birmingham,
and Sheffield, and hunting-ground of the shikarri
and the missionary, is putting on European clothes,
and thinking along European lines ; its land is
overcrowded ; its soil deteriorating at a rapid rate

278 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

towards actual sterility. It needs no prophet to fore-
cast what all this involves. If " fertile France," as
Dr. Hunter calls it,* is crowded, with i8o people
to the square mile ; and fair, green Ireland so
over-populated, with 169 persons to the square
mile, that she pours her emigrants into America by-
millions ; if the people of England when they exceed
200 to the square mile, gain their food only by
employing themselves in manufactures, mines, and
city industries — what must we think of hapless
India's lot ? Throughout British India the aver-
age population is 243 persons to the square mile,
and there are portions — as, for instance, in thirteen
districts of Northern India, equal in size to
Ireland — where the land has to support an average
of 680 persons to the square mile, or more than one
person to each acre ! The Famine Commissioners
report that in Bengal twenty-four millions of human
beings are trying to live on the produce of fifteen
million acres, or little more than half an acre apiece.
" The Indian soil," as Dr. Hunter says, " cannot
support that struggle." And what then — is it
asked ? Well, death to crores : that is the grinning
skull behind the gold cloth and glitter of these
pageants ; such are the terrible words traced in the
invisible ink of Fate between the lines of these
college diplomas. This state of things is the result
of definite causes, and in their turn these effects
become causes of fresh results far ahead. From

* England's Work In India. By W. W. Hunter, CLE., LL.D.,
London, 1881.

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 279

the experience of the past we may always prognos-
ticate what is Hkely to come. And this brings us
to the third and last branch of the subject.

THE FUTURE.

Who shall raise the curtain that now hangs in
black heavy folds before the TO-BE ? Only the
eye of the perfect seer can penetrate the secrets of
the coming ages. The true Yogi of old could fore-
tell events because he had acquired the power to
pass at will into the spiritual universe, and in
that condition Past and Future are merged into
one conscious Present ; as to an observer who
stands at the centre of a circle, every point in
the circumference is equi-distant. But the true
Yogis are now few, and if any are to be met among
us, they are hiding themselves, more and more
carefully every day, from the sight of men. We
must then proceed by the deductive, since we may
not by the intuitive, process. And as we are
helped by comparative philology to theorize upon
the origin and destiny of language, so, by the study
of comparative history, we may at least get some
idea of the probable outcome of the social forces
we see at work in the India of to-day. Through
this glass, then, I see the country, after having
reached the predestined lowest level of adversity —
predestined, I mean, by the universal cyclic law
which controls the destinies of nations, as the law
of gravitation controls the orbits of the planets — I

28o INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

see her rising again. Action and reaction — the
sway of the pendulum of human events — follow each
other. Nations, however splendid and powerful,
are stamped out, under the iron heel of reactive
destiny, if their inherent vitality be weak. But
when it is strong, then, indeed, may we behold the
majestic spectacle of a nation reviving from its very
ashes, and starting afresh on the road to greatness.
To which category shall we assign India ? I know
not what others may think, but for my part I do
most firmly believe in her future. If she had been
weak of vitality she would have been obliterated
by various causes ; nay, if she had not had an in-
herent giant strength, her own vices would have
destroyed her before now. She has survived
everything, and she will live to renew her strength.
Her best sons are afforded not only oppor-
tunities for education, but also of training, in
hundreds of offices, in practical statesmanship,
under the greatest nation of administrators of
modern times — not even America excepted.
European education is creating a new caste which is
to guide the nation up the hill. And as the Aryan
of former times was the very prince of philosophers,
so it is in the order of nature that his descendant
should become in time one of the ablest of states-
men. Already broader and higher spheres of use-
fulness are opening before him, partly as the result
of his own importunities, partly because of the
greater economy of administration that his admis-
sion to the higher preferments seems likely to

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 281

offer. We are, perhaps, at the threshold of a new
era of Indian clvihzation, an era of enormous
development The bad crisis may be postponed,
perhaps almost averted, by the aid of liberal
science. If the present peaceful and stable order
of things should continue — and surely such should
be the sincere prayer of every one who wishes
well to India, for change would mean a plunge
back into chaos — we shall see the barriers gradually
melt away that have kept the peoples apart.
Gradually they are realizing that, however distant
the Punjab may be from Travancore, or Cutch
from Bengal, the people are yet brothers, children
of the same mother. When this conviction shall
once possess the whole body of these twenty-
four crores, then will the renascence of this
nation have indeed arrived. And then, with all
the modern improvements in arts, sciences, and
manufactures, superadded to abundant labour ;
schools thronged with eager students ; the know-
ledge of the Aryans unearthed from the dust
of ages ; the Vedas reverenced and appreciated
by the whole educated class, who are now co-
quetting with Infidelity, with Atheism, with
sciolistic Science — with everything that is cal-
culated to despiritualize and denationalize them ;
with Sanskrit teachers well supported and honoured
as in former days ; with the most distant districts
bound together by a network of railways and other
public works ; with the mineral and agricultural
resources of the country fully developed ; with the

282 INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

pressure of population adjusted to the capacities
of the several districts ; with the last chains of
superstition broken, and the eyes unbandaged that
have been so long withheld from seeing the truth,
— the day of Aryan regeneration will have fully
dawned. Then once more shall Aryavarta give
birth to sons so good as to provoke the admiring
homage of the world. When shall we see this
glorious day ? When shall India take the proud
place she might assume in the family of nations ?
Ah ! when ? The oracle is silent ; the book of
destiny none have read. It may be only after a
century or centuries ; it cannot be soon, for the
pendulum swings slowly, and on the dial of Fate
the hours are marked by cycles and epochs, not by
hours or single generations. Enough for us the
present hour ; for out of the present comes the
future, and the things we do and those we leave
undone weave the warp and wind the woof of our
destinies. We are masters of causes, but slaves
of their results. Take this truth to heart,
and remember that whatever your faith — If
you have any faith at all In man's survival after
death — whether, as Hindus, you believe in Karma,
or, as Buddhists, you believe in Prishna, you can-
not escape the responsibility of your acts. What
you do that is good or bad, and what you might
do but leave undone, will equally be placed to your
account by the Law of Compensation. The lesson
of the hour is that every Indian mother should
recall to the child at her knee the glories of the

INDIA : PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 2S

o

past, that every son of the soil should keep green
the memory of his ancestors, and that each should
do what he can, in every way and always,
to deserve and to dignify the name of an
Aryan.

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA

NEEDS.*

In reflecting upon a choice of subjects upon which
to address you, it seems to me that our time would
be most profitably spent in examining the modern
dogma, that " the true test of the civilization of a
nation must be measured by its progress in science."
I shall consider it in its relation to Asiatic, especially
Indian, needs and standards. My discourse will
not be exhaustive, not even approximately so. I
am not going to attempt an oration or an exegesis.
I shall only say a few words upon a subject so pro-
found and exhaustless that one would scarcely be
able to consider its lengths and breadths without
writing a volume, or perhaps a score of volumes. For,
to know what progress really is, and what are the
absolute canons of civilization, one must trace back
the intellectual achievements of mankind to the
remotest past ; and that, too, with a clue that only
the Asiatic people can place in our possession. If
Europe really wishes to estimate the rush of civiliza-
tion, she must not take her datum line from the
mental, spiritual, and moral degradation of her own

*A Lecture delivered at Tuticoiin, 22nd Cctober^ iSSi.

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS. 2S5

Middle Ages, but from the epochs of Indian and
Mongoh'an greatness. The advancement Europe
has experienced in popular intelligence, in religious
enfranchisement, and in the multiplication of aids
to physical comfort ; and the phenomenal leap
made by my own country of America, within one
century, to the topmost rank of national power —
these are well calculated to make her accept the
above-stated scientific dogma without a thought of
protest. The quoted words are those of Sir John
Lubbock, and I take them from the report in
Nature (No. 618, vol. 24) of his presidential address
to the members of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, on the 31st of August,
1 88 1 — an address that will figure in history. The
occasion was the fiftieth anniversary meeting of the
Association, and the President properly, and most
ably and lucidly, reviewed the progress of science
during this wonderful half-century. How vast has
been the increase of knowledge about physical
nature, and what vistas it opens out, I need not
particularize before so intelligent a Hindu audience
as the present. You, who have had the benefit of
a modern education, know that most branches
of physical science have been revolutionized, and
many positively created, within the past half-
century. Biology, the science of living organiza-
tions ; Surgery ; Archaeology ; Comparative
Philology; Anthropology; Geology; Palaeontology;
Geography; Astronomy; Optics; Physics, including
the Kinetic theory of gases ; the properties of

286 THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS.

matter and the conservation of energy ; Photo-
graphy ; Electricity and Magnetism, and their
correlations ; Mathematics, as applied to scientific
problems; Chemistry; Mechanical Science, includ-
ing the processes for utilizing metals ; Economic
Science and Statistics ; — the development of these
is the splendid triumph of the intellectual activity
of the Western world, since the year 1830, Sir
John Lubbock counts it all up in the following
words : " Summing up the principal results which
have been attained in the last half-century, we may
mention (over and above the accumulation of facts)
the theory of evolution, the antiquity of man, and
the far greater antiquity of the world itself; the
correlation of physical forces, and the conservation
of energy ; spectrum analysis and its application to
celestial physics; the higher algebra and the modern
geometry; lastly, the innumerable applications of
science to practical life — as, for instance, in photo-
graphy, the locomotive engine, the electric telegraph,
the spectroscope, and most recently, the electric
light and the telephone." Truly, if we compare the
Europe and America of to-day with what they were
five centuries, or even one century ago, we see good
reason for the shout of exultation v\dth which the
progress of the Western nations is celebrated.
And we can quite understand why the learned and
respected President of the British Association
should have laid down the dogma already noted in
my opening remarks. An educated Hindu would
be the last to dissent from his position that there

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS, 2S7

are no probable limits to the power of the human
mind, to solve all the ultimate problems of natural
law. When, by the help of the spectroscope, we
have been enabled to discover the very composition
of the stars of heaven, who shall dare to fix a limit
to the capacity of man to unravel the mysteries of
the universe around him ?

But you must remember that we have been
speaking of the progress of physical science ; and
that after that has done its best, after its proficients
have pushed their researches to the very verge of
objective nature, though not one secret of the
phenomenal world is left uncovered, there is another
and a far more important domain of knowledge still
left to explore. At that outermost verge yawns an
abyss that separates it from the Unknown, and, as
scientific men call it, the Unknowable. Why do
they not enter this boundless department of
Nature ? Why, in all this hurry-skurry of the
biologists after knowledge, have they not solved
the old problem of the why, the whence, the
whither of Man ? Is it not because their methods
are faulty, and their canons of science too narrow ?
Firstly, they have been overshadowed throughout
their investigations by the dark and menacing
influence of a Christian theology ignorant of Christ;
and secondly, they have been hampered by their
ignorant disdain for the claims of Asiatic Occult-
ism, whose adepts alone can tell them how they
may learn the secret laws of Nature and of man.
Read the summary of scientific progress made by

2S8 THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS.

Professor Draper, in that splendid work of his, en-
titled "The Conflict between Religion and Science,"
if you would see how Theology has fought that
progress inch by inch. O, the black and bloody
record ! Bow your heads in reverence, friends of
human progress, to the martyrs of science who
have battled for the truth. And - when you go
through so-called Christian countries, as I have
gone, and see how that once haughty and all-
powerful Church Is crumbling, let your hearts
throb with gratitude for the long array of daring
scientists who have dissected her pretensions,
unmasked her false doctrines, shivered the bloody
sword of her authority, and left her what she now
is, a dying superstition, the last vestiges of whose
authority are passing away. Do you think I am
speaking in prejudice or passion ? Alas ! no, my
friends and brothers ; I am but giving voice to the
facts of history, and every unprejudiced man among
you may verify them If he chooses. Professor
Huxley, who, without the least apparent sympathy
for Asiatic thought, or knowledge of its ancient
occult science, is yet unconsciously one of the
greatest allies of both, in doing what he can to
advance science in spite of theology, says : — " The
myths of Paganism are dead as Osiris or Zeus, and
the man who should revive them, iji opposition to
the knozvledge of our time, would be justly laughed to
scorn ; but the coeval imaginations current among
the rude inhabitants of Palestine, recorded by
writers whose very name and age are admitted by

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS. 289

every scholar to be unknown, have unfortunately
not yet shared their fate ; but, even at this day, are
regarded by nine-tenths of the civilized world as the
authoritative standard of fact and the criterion of
the justice of scientific conclusions, in all that
relates to the origin of things, and among them, of
species. In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn
of modern physical science, the cosmogony of the
semi-barbarous Hebrew is the inaibns of the pJiiloso-
pher and the opprobrmm of the orthodox. Who shall
number the patient and earnest seekers after truth,
from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives
have been embittered and their good name blasted
by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters ? Who shall
count the host of w^eaker men whose sense of truth
has been destroyed in the effort to harmonize im-
possibilities— whose life has been wasted in the
attempt to force the generous new wine of science
into the old bottles of Judaism, compelled by the
outcry of the stronger party ? " Hail ! Huxley,
man of the Iron Age !

And how w^ell he says again : — " It is true that if
philosophers have suffered, their cause has been
amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie
about the cradle of every science. (Christian)
orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought.
It learns not, neither can it forget; and, though at
present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as
willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of
Genesis contains the beginning and the end of
sound science ; and to visit, with such petty

T

290 THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS.

thunderbolts as its half-paralyzed hands can hurl,
those who refuse to degrade nature to the level of
primitive Judaism." These are the brave utter-
ances of one of the most respected among
European scientists ; and he expresses the opinion
of an overwhelming majority of his colleagues.
None know better than we, humble founders of the
Theosophical Society, tQ what depths of meanness
and to what extremes of malice Christian bigots
can go, to impede the progress of free-thought. For
the last six years we have been pursued with their
calumnies against our good names. All the news-
papers in India and Ceylon that could be controlled
or influenced by these enemies of truth, have been
trying their best to embitter o?ir lives. Where
falsehood has failed and slander recoiled upon
them, they have employed the stinging whips of
ridicule : and what has been our offence ? Simply
that we have preached universal religious tolerance,
that we have stood up for the dignity and majesty
of ancient Asiatic science and philosophy, and have
implored the degenerate sons of a glorious ancestry
to be ^vorthy of the great names they bear. It is
these insatiate enemies that have set police spies to
track our footsteps throughout India ; that have
charged us with being adventurers ; that have circu-
lated numberless lies about us; that have forged
letters we never wrote. Clergymen, from their pul-
pits ; editors, from their desks; catechists, at the street
corners ; even bishops and other high dignitaries of
the Church, have tried to weaken our influence and

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS. 291

to stop our mouths. But as we have stood for the
truth, so has the truth stood by us ; and day by day
our vindication has been growing more perfect. An
honest life is its own best shield. It has served us
in India and Ceylon ; and not only have the
Government of India called off their detectives, but
at Simla, the summer capital of India, we have just
organized a Branch — the Simla Eclectic Theoso-
phical Society — almost entirely composed of Anglo-
Indians. As for Ceylon, the Colonial Secretary has
refused all applications to the Government to
molest us, and has opened the prison-doors for me
to lecture to the Buddhist convicts.

So, as you see, my first proposition — that
scientific inquiry has been impeded by the
bigots of Christian theology — is made out. We
will now consider the second. The disdain
felt for the ancient occultists is well ex-
pressed by Professor Huxley in the passage above
quoted. He who would dare to revive the old
pagan myths must expect to be " laughed to scorn."
Physical science has dissected them, found no
" Kinetic energy " in that " gas," could not test
them by the spectroscope, and so they must have
been sheer nonsense ! But we say they were not >
and, having not only studied those myths under
teachers who could interpret them, but having also
learnt from those who could experimentally de-
monstrate the truth of their assertions, what the
ancient myth-makers of India knew of science, we
" laugh to scorn " the whole school of modern

292 THE CIVILIZA TION THA T INDIA NEEDS.

scientists, who know so much in one direction and
so httle in another. Sir John Lubbock quotes ap-
provingly in his address the opinion of Bagehot that
the ancients " had no conception of progress ; they
did not so much as reject the idea : they did not
even entertain it." This is the very key to my pre-
sent discourse. I want you to reahze what should
be called real " progress," and why the ancients —
your forefathers — " did not even entertain " the idea
of what the modern scientists regard as progress.
And to comprehend this question, we must first
understand what man is, and what the highest point
of progress or improvement to which he may attain.
If you will run your eye over the list of sciences
noted by the President of the British Association,
you will see that nearly all of them bear upon the
material comfort, or educational development, of
the physical man, and his understanding of the
physical facts of the world he lives in. Thousands
of the most startling of modern inventions are to
aid the Western populations against rigour of
climate and infertility of soil, to facilitate the
transport of passengers and merchandize and the
transmission of intelligence, and to gratify the
appetites and passions of our baser nature. It has
been one mad struggle of physical man with
natural obstacles ; the chief objects, the multiplica-
tion of wealth, of power, of means of physical grati-
fication. Some people call this "progress;" but
what sort of progress is it that arms the lower
against the higher part of man's self? The Christian

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS. 293

Bible puts it thus : — '' What shall it profit a man
if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul ? " [Mark viii. 36.] The words are not like
mine, but the idea is the same. There is a kind of
" progress " that leads to moral debasement and
spiritual death. I put it to you, Hindus, whether
you have not become familiar with it since you took
to wearing European shoes, and to drinking that
strong stuff that comes in corked bottles, and is
drunk with soda-water out of a big tumbler?

What has become of Religion in this half-century
of turmoil? How fares it with man's better nature?
is it purer, nobler, than it was when your ancestors
were satisfied with their myths, and not troubling
themselves about progress ? The moderns have
grown wise indeed, if the acme of wisdom be to
know why birds, and bugs, and animals are striped,
or spotted, are of this colour or shape, or of the
other ; why the sky is blue, water will not run up
hill, stars wheel around their centres of attraction,
and electricity leaps from cloud to cloud. But if, as
the ancients held, the highest wisdom be to know
the secret causes for all objective phenomena, and
the extent to which all our human faculties can be
developed, then these scientists are but busy ants,
living within a microscopic hillock of great Nature.
Their boasted progress is, from this ancient point
of view, but the beginning of true knowledge, at
the wrong end, and all their troublesome activity
but vanity and vexation of spirit. Is Civilization
measured by the progress of Science ? What is

294 THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS.

Civilization ? Is it the perfecting of deadly
weapons for the better killing of man by man ?
Is it the wholesale debasement of a people by en-
couraging the consumption of opium and strong
drinks ? Is it the falsification of articles of food
and clothing to cheat the unwary ? Is it the lower-
ing of the standard of truthfulness to the point
where perjury is at a premium, and man has
almost lost all confidence in his fellow-man ? Is
it the extinction of the intuitive faculties, and
the stifling of the religious sentiment? Are these
the marks of Civilization ? Then, indeed, do they
abound, and marvellously has the world progressed,
within the last half-century. But the true moralist,
I opine, would call these the proufs of retrogression.
If he were candid, and could be brought to read
what the ancient Hindus had reall}' discovered, and
what was their lofty standard of enlightenment, he
would have to confess that we moderns make but a
sorry show in comparison with them. They may
not have had railways and spectroscopes, but they
had grand notions of what constitutes an ideal man,
and the vestiges of their civil polity that remain
to us show that society was well organized, that
private rights were protected, and the domestic
virtues cultivated. I am not speaking of the epochs
intermediate between their time and our own, but
about the real ancients, the progenitors alike of the
modern Hindu and the modern European. The
biologist of our day is using his lenses and scalpel —
for what purpose ? To discover the secret laws of

THE CIVTLIZA TION THA T INDIA NEEDS. 295

life, is It not? Well, the ancient philosopher knew
these, thousands of years ago ; so where is the pro-
gress we are wont to boast of? The modern
engineer builds bridges and railways, and great
ships, to carry us from countrj^ to country. But the
ancient mystic could, as quick as thought, project
his inner self to any place he pleased, however dis-
tant, and see and be seen there. Which is the
greater proof of " progress " — to have one's body
carried In a wooden carriage, over iron rails, at the
rate of sixty miles an hour, or by the force of an
iron will, aided by a profound knowledge of the
forces of Nature, to go In one's Double around the
earth, through the pathless Akasa, in the twinkling
of an eye? Or take chemistry as an example.
We will say nothing about the science having been
entirely recreated since 1830, when the radical
theory of Berzelius was In vogue : let that pass.
We will take the science as it stands now; and
what is its characteristic ? Uncertainty, assuredly.
Great discoveries have been made, but the lacimce,
or gaps, between the chemist and a full knowledge
of the laws of Nature, are still confessedly as great
as ever ; for each new discovery is but another
eminence from which the experimentalist sees the
horizon ever receding. Chemistry can expel life
and disintegrate atoms; it can by synthesis rebuild
inert matter. But it cannot recall the parted life
that is once gone. It can separate the rose-leaf
into atoms, but It cannot mould them again into a
rose-leaf, nor restore its vanished perfume. And

296 THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS.

yet, by the creative power of their trained will,
the ancient occultists could make roses fall in
showers, from out of the empty air, upon the heads
of sceptics, or fill the room with waves of any per-
fume they might ask for. Nay, those who have
studied their science have done the like in our own
days, and before our own eyes. Can any member
of the British Association, with his imperfect
methods, show us any one of the phenomena of the
SiddJiis, described in the Shrimad Bhagavata : —
AimuLh, Mahiind, Laghimd, Prapii, Prakdshyama,
Ishiia, Vashiidy and the eighth which enables one
to attain his every wish ? Can he display any
knowledge of the Buddhist Iddhiwiddhindna
science, by producing the wonders of either the
Lmikika or Lokothra ? When he can do any of
these things, and vie w^ith either the Indian Rishi
or the Buddhist Arhdt, then let him dogmatize to
us about " progress," and indulge in his witticisms
against the "ancients." Until then we will return
him laughter for laughter, scorn for scorn.

Progress, you will perceive, is a relative term.
What may be wonderful advancement to one
people, may be quite the opposite to another. And
as for civilization, I consider we are only justified
in applying the name to that state of society in
which intellectual enlightenment is attended by
the highest moral development, and where the
rights of the individual, and the welfare of the
people as a whole, are equally and fully realized.
I cannot call any country civilized which, like

THE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS. 297

England or America, spends five times as much
for spirituous drink as for religious and secular
education. I call that a barbarous, not a civilized
power which derives a large proportion of its in-
come from the encouragement of opium-smoking
and of arrack and whiskey-drinking. I give the
same name to a nation which, in spite of the teach-
ings of Economic Science and the dictates of reli-
gion and morality, plunges into wars of conquest,
that it may make new markets, among weaker
peoples, for its wares and merchandise. That a
different theory of civilization prevails serves but
to show the utter perversion of the moral sense
which " modern progress " has brought about.

But may we not even ask Sir John Lubbock and
his colleagues how they have discovered what the
ancients did or did not know of even physical
science ? In another lecture {India : Past, Present,
and Fntnre) I noted the fact that there were ex-
hibited at the ]\lahasabha, described in the BJiarata,
certain wonderful specimens of mechanical in-
genuity and technical skill. The fourteenth chapter
of the first volume of Madame Blavatsky's Isis
Unveiled, abounds with illustrations of the profound
knowledge possessed by ancient Egypt, Phoenicia,
Cambodia, India and other countries, of the arts
and sciences. If occasion required, I might show
you, by chapter and verse, that some of the very
latest discoveries of modern science are but re-
discoveries of things known to the ancients, but
long lost to mankind. The more I study, the more

298 THE CTVTLIZA TTON TIT A T INDIA NEEDS.

is the truth of the arxlent doctrnie of cycles made
clear to my mind. As the stars of heaven move in
their orbits around their central suns, so does hu-
manity seem ever circling about the Sun of Truth ;
now illuminated, now in eclipse ; in one epoch re-
splendent with light and civilization, in another
under the shadow of ignorance and in the night of
moral and spiritual degradation. Four times have
the islands now forming the Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland dipped beneath the ocean, and,
after intervals to be calculated only by the arith-
methic of geological time, been raised again and
repeopled * There was a time when the Himalayas,
as well as the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Andes,
were under water, and the ocean rolled where they
now rear their towering crests. How vain is it,
then, for people to pretend to say what the ancients
did not know, and what is " new under the sun ! "
You do not find the Hindus or Chinese making such
a mistake ; their records, on the contrary, show
that their ancestors possessed far more wisdom than
their descendants, and the Chinese reverence for
them is so strong as to take the form of religious
worship. I should not need to go, as I am going,
all over India and Ceylon, to implore you, Asiatic
men of to-day, not to dishonour yourselves by
sneering at your " ignorant ancestors," if you had
ever studied the literature they left behind them.
It is your blind ignorance that makes you guilty of
this sacrilege. Your education has been prescribed

* Huxley : Lay Sermons, p. 215,

7 HE CIVILIZATION THAT INDIA NEEDS, 299

by the men of " progress." They have taught you
a Httle Latin, less Greek, some patches of what
they call History, such Logic and Philosophy as
they have scraped out of the dry bones of the
ancient philosophers, and a terrible amount of mis-
leading physical science. And, with your heads
crammed with such poor stuff, you assume airs and
" laugh to scorn " the benighted beings who founded
the six schools of Indian Philosophy, and the Rishis
and Yogis who were able to range unfettered
through all Cosmos ! Ay, and to divest your-
selves of the least tinge of suspicion that such ad-
vanced minds as yours could sympathise with the
" degrading superstitions " of your nation, you vie
with each other in efforts to lay your pride of race,
your intellectual manhood, your self-respect, in
the dirt, for the hob-nailed shoes of " progress " to
stamp upon. Shame on such Asiatics !

What the best friends of India and Ceylon most
ardently desire is to see their young men cling to
all that is good of the olden times, while grasping all
that is useful of the modern epoch. That is the
civilization which India needs. There are certain
abstract moral doctrines, never new and never old,
that are the property of our race. The best
maxims that Jesus taught were' taught by others,
ages before his time — if he had ever a time, which
some declare a doubtful question. So we must not
measure civilization by the evolution of moral codes,
but by the national living up to them. Christen-
dom has as fine a moral code as could be wished for :

3CO THE CI VI LIZA 7 ION THA T INDIA NEEDS.

but she shows her real principles in her Krupp and
Armstrong guns and whiskey distilleries, in her
opium ships, sophisticated merchandise, prurient
amusements, licentiousness and political dishonesty.
Christendom we may almost say, is morally rotten
and spiritually paralysed. If interested mission-
aries tell you otherwise, do not believe them upon
assertion: go through Christian countries and see for
yourselves. Or, if you will not or cannot go, then
get the proper books and read. And when you have
seen, or read, and the horrid truth bursts upon you ;
when you have lifted the pretty mask of this smil-
ing goddess of Progress, and seen the spiritual
rottenness behind it, then, O, young men of sacred
India, heirs of great renown, turn to the history of
your own land. Read, and be satisfied that it is
better to be good than learned ; to be pure-minded
and spiritual than rich ; to be ignorant as a ryot,
with his virtue, than intelligent as a Parisian de-
bauchee, with his vices ; to be a heathen Hindu
practising the moralities of the Rishis than a pro-
gressed and civilized European trampling under
foot all the laws that conduce to human happiness
and to true progress.

THE SPIRIT OF THE
ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION.*

With great diffidence I have accepted your in-
vitation to address the Parsis upon the theme of
the present discourse. The subject is so noble, its
Hterature is so rich, its ramifications are so numerous,
that no Hving man could possibly do it full justice
in a single lecture. Happy, indeed, shall I be, if I
succeed in communicating to one or two of the
learned Parsi scholars who honour me with their
presence, some of the deep interest which I have
had for years in the esoteric meaning of the
Mazdiaznian faith. My hope is to attract your at-
tention to the only line of research which can lead
you towards the truth. That line was traced by
Zoroaster, and followed by the Magi, the Mobeds
and the Dasturs of old. Those great men have
transmitted their thoughts to posterity under the
safe cover of an external ritual. They have
masked them under a symbolism and ceremonies,
that guard their mighty secrets from the prying
curiosity of the vulgar crowd, but that hide nothing

* A Lecture delivered at the To\\'n Hall, Bombay, I4tli February,
1S82.

302 THE SPIRIT OF THE

from those who deserve to know all. Do not mis-
understand me. I am not pretending that / know
all, or nearly all : at best I have had but a
glimpse of the reality. But even that little Is quite
enough to convince me that, within the husk of
your modern religion, there Is the shining soul of
the old faith that came to Zaratusht In his Persian
home, and once Illuminated the whole trans-
Himalayan world. Children of Iran, heirs of
the Chaldean lore; you who so loved your re-
ligion that neither the sword of Omar, nor the de-
lights ot home, nor the yearning of our common
humanity to live among the memories of our
ancestors, could make you deny It ; you
who, for the sake of conscience, fled from
your native land and erected an altar for
the symbolical Sacred Fire in foreign coun-
tries, more hospitable than yours had become ;
you, men of intelligence, of an ancient character
for probity, of enterprise In all good works — you
are the only ones to lift the dark veil of this
modern ParsIIsm, and let the " Hidden Splendour "
again blaze forth. Mine Is but the office of the
friendly wayfarer who points you to the mouth of
the private road that leads through your own
domain. I am not, if you please, a man, but only
a voice. I need not even appeal to you to strip
away the foreign excrescences that, during twelve
centuries of residence among strangers, have
fastened themselves upon primitive Zoroastrianism
nor recite to you its simple yet ail-sufficient code

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGWA^. 303

of morality, and ask you to live up to It more
closely. This work has already been undertaken by
Intelligent and public-spirited members of your
own community. But I am to show you that your
religion Is In agreement with the most recent dis-
coveries of modern science, and that the freshest
graduate from Elphlnstone College has no cause to
blush for the " Ignorance " of Zaratusht ! And I
am to prove to you that your faith rests upon the
rock of truth, the living rock of Occult Science,
upon which the initiated progenitors of mankind
built every one of the religions that have since
swayed the thoughts and stimulated the aspirations
of a hundred generations of worshippers. Let
others trace back the history of Zoroastrlanism to
and beyond the time of the Bactrian King VIs-
tasp ; and reconcile the quarrels of Aristotle,
Hermippus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Polyhlstor,
and other ancient as well as modern critics, as
to when Zaratusht lived, and where was his birth-
place : these are non-essentials. It is of far less
moment to know where and of what parentage a
religious reformer was born, than to be sure of
what he taught and whether his teaching Is calcu-
lated to bless mankind. Plotlnus, the philo-
sopher, so well knew this that he would not tell,
even to Porphyry, his pupil and literary bio-
grapher, what was his native country, what his real
name, or his parentage. As regards Zaratusht one
thing is affirmed, viz., that about six centuries
B.C. one man of that name lived — whether or not

304 THE SPIRIT OF I HE

several others preceded him, as some respectable
authorities affirm — and that the religion he
preached, whether new or old, was of so noble a
character, that it indelibly stamped its impress
upon the then chief school of Western philosophy,
that of Greece.* It is also, as I believe, certain

* In the oldest Iranian book called the "Desatir" — a collection
of the teachings of the fourteen oldest Iranian prophets (to make the
number fifteen and include, among them, Sirakendesh, or
*' Secander," is a grave error, as may be proved on the authority of
Zaratusht himself in that book) — Zaratusht stands thirteenth in the
list. The fact is significant. Respecting the period of Zoroaster
the First, or his personality, there is no trustworthy information
given by Western scholars ; their authorities conflict in the
most perplexing manner. Indeed among the many discor-
dant notices I find the earliest Greek classic writers, who tell us
that Zaratusht lived from 6oo to 5,000 years before the Trojan war,
or 6,000 years before Plato. Again it is declared by Berosus, the
Chaldean priest, that Zoroaster was the founderof an Indian dynasty in
Babylon 2200 B.C. ; while the later native traditions inform us that
he was the son of Purushaspa, and a contemporary of Gustaspa, the
father of Darius, which would bring him within 600 B.C. Lastly,
it is asserted by Bunsen that he was born at Bactria before the
emigration of the Bactrians to the Indus, which took place, as the
learned Egyptologist shows us, 3784 B.C. Among this host of
contradictions, what conclusion can one come to ? Evidently, there
is but one hypothesis left : and that is that they are all wrong, the
reason for it beins: the one I find in the secret traditions of the
esoteric doctrine — namely, that there were several teachers of that
name. Neither Plato nor Aristotle, so accurate in their statements,
is likely to have transformed 200 years into 6,000. As to the
generally accepted native tradition, which makes the great prophet
a contemporary of Darius' father, it is absurd on the very
face of it. Though the error is too palpable to need any elaborate
confutation, I may say a few words in regard to it. The latest re
searches show that the Persian inscriptions point to Vistasp as the
last of the line of Kaianian princes who ruled in Bactria, while the
Assyrian conquest of that countiy took place in 1200 B.C. Now
this alone would prove that Zoroaster lived twelve or thirteen hun-

ZOROASTRIAISf RELIGION. 305

that this man was an initiate in the sacred
Mysteries, or to put it differently — that he had, by
a certain course of mystical study, penetrated all
the hidden mysteries of man's nature and of the
world about him. Zoroaster is bv the Greek
writers often called the Assyrian " Nazaret."
This term comes from the word Nazar or Nazir —
set apart, separated. The Nazars were a very
ancient sect of adepts, existing ages before Christ.
They are described as " physicians, healers of the
sick by the imposition of the hands," and as
initiated into the Mysteries (see treatise Nazir in
the Talmud). The Jews returning from the

dred years B.C., instead of the 600 assigned to him ; and thus that
he could not have been a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes, whose
father was so carelessly and for such a length of time confounded in
this connexion Vv'ith the Vistasp who flourished six centuries earlier.
If we add to this the historical discrepancy between the statement of
Amniianus Marcelinus — which makes Darius crush the Magi and
introduce the worship of Ahurmazda — and the inscription on the
tomb of that king which states that he was " teacher and hierophant
of Magianism ; " and that other no less significant and very impor-
tant fact that the Zoroastrian Avesta shows no signs of the knowledge
of its writer or writers of either the Medes, the Persians, or the
Assyrians, the ancient books of the Parsis remaining silent upon and
showing no acquaintance with any of the nations that are
known to have dwelt in or near the Western parts of Iran — the date,
600 B.C. — accepted as the period in which the prophet is alleged
to have flourished, becomes absolutely impossible.

It is therefore safe to come to the following conclusions : — (i.)
That there were several (in all seve^t, say the Secret Records,) AJnirti-
asiers, or spiritual teachers, of Ahurmazda, an office corrupted later
into Gtirii-asters and Ziirii-asters from " Zera-Ishtar," the title of
the Chaldean or Magian priests ; and (2) that the last of them was
Zaratusht of the Desaiir^ the thirteenth of the prophets, and the
seventh of that name. It was he who was the contemporary of

U

3o6 THE SPIRIT OF THE

Babylonian captivity were thoroughly imbued v/ith
Zoroastrian and Magian ideas ; their forefathers
had agreed with the Sabeans in the Bactric wor-
ship, the adoration of the Sun, Moon, and Five
Planets, the Sabaoth and realms of light. In
Babylon they had learned to worship the Seven -
Rayed God. And so we find running all through-
out the Christian as well as the Jewish Scriptures,
the septenary system, which culminates in the
Book of Revelation (the final pamphlet of the Bible)
in the Heptaktis, and a prophecy of the coming of
the Persian Sosiosh, under the figure of the Chris-
tian Messiah, riding, like the former, upon a white

Vislasp, the last of the Kaianian princes, and the compiler of
Vendldad, the Commentaries upon which are lost, there remaining
now but the dead letter. Some of the facts given in the Secret
Records, though to the exact scholar merely traditional, are very
interesting. They are to the effect that there exists a certain hollow
rock, full of tablets, in a gigantic cave bearing the name of the
Zaratushta, under his Magian appellation, and that the tablets may
yet be rescued some day. This cave, with its rock and tablets and
its many inscriptions on the walls, is situated at the summit of one of
the peaks of the Thian Shan mountains far beyond their junction
with the Belor Tagh, somewhere along their Eastern course. One
of the half-pictorial and half-written prophecies and teachings at-
tributed to Zaratusht himself, relates to that deluge which has trans-
formed an inland sea into the dreary desert called Shamo or Gobi
Desert. The esoteric key to the mysterious creeds flippantly called,
at one time, the Sabian or Planetary Religion, at another, the
Solar or Fire \Yorship, " hangs in that cave," says the legend. In
it the great Prophet is represented with a golden star on his heart
and as belonging to that race of Ante-diluvian giants mentioned in
the sacred books of both the Chaldeans and the Jews. It matters
little whether this hypothesis be accepted or rejected. Since the
rejection of it would not make the otlicr more trustworthy, it was
as well to mention it,

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGWN. 307

horse. By the Jewish sect of the Pharisees, whose
great teacher was Hillel, the whole angelology and
symbolism of the Zoroastrians were accepted, and
infused into Jewish thought ; and their Hebrew
Kabala, or secret book of Occult Wisdom, was the
offspring of the Chaldean Kabala. This deathless
work is the receptacle of all the ancient lore of
Chaldea, Persia, Media, Bactria, and the pre-Iran-
ian period. The name by wdilch its students in
the secret lodges of the Jewish Pharisees (or Phat-
sis) were known was Kabirini — from Kabeiri, the
Mystery Gods of Assyria. Zoroastrianism and
Magianism proper were, then, the chief source both
of esoteric Judaism and of esoteric Christianity.
But not only has this subtle spirit left the latter re-
ligion, under the pressure of worldllness and scepti-
cal inquiry : it also long ago left Judaism. The
modern Hebrews are not Kabalists but Talmudlsts,
holding to the later interpretations of the Mosaic
canon : only here and there can we now find a
real Kabalist, who knows what is the true religion
of his people and whence it was derived.

The real history of Zoroaster and his religion has
never been w^rltten. The Parsis have lost the key,
as the Jews and Christians have lost that of their
respective faiths, and as I find the Southern Bud-
dhists have lost that of theirs. Not to the living
pandits or priests of either of those religions can
the laity look for light. They can only quote the
opinions of ancient Greek and Roman, or modern
German, French or English wTiters. This very day

3o8 THE SPIRIT OF THE

nearly all that your most enlightened scholars
know about your religion is what they have col-
lated from European sources, and that is almost
exclusively about its literature and external forms.
And see what ridiculous mistakes some of those
authorities make at times! Prideaux, treating
of the Sad-der, says that Zaratusht preached
incest ; that " nothing of this nature is unlawful, a
man may not only marry his sister or his daughter^
but even his mother T {Ancient Universal History,
iv. 296). He quotes no Zend authority, nothing
written by a Parsi, but only Jewish and Christian
authorities, such as Philo, Tertullian, and Clemens
Alexandrinus. Eutychius, a priest and archimand-
rite at Constantinople, writes, in the fifth century,
on Zoroastrianism as follows : " Nimrod beheld a
fire rising out of the earth and he worshipped it,
and from that time forth the Magi worshipped fire.
And he appointed a man named Ardeshan to be
the priest and servant of the Fire. The Devil
shortly after that spoke out of the midst of the fire
(as did Jehovah to Moses?) saying ' No man can
serve the Fire or learn Truth in my Religion, un-
less first he shall commit incest with his mother,
sister, and daughter ! He did as Jie zvas eomnianded ;
and fromthattimethe priests of theMagianspractised
incest ; but Ardeshan was the first inventor of that
doctrine." I quote this as a sample of the wretched
stuff that has always been written against the Zor-
oastrian religion by its enemies. The above words
are simply the dead letter mistranslation of the

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 309

secret doctrine, of which portions are to be found
in certain rare old MSS. possessed by the Armen-
ians at Etchmiadzine, the oldest monastery in
Russian Caucasus. They are known as the Mes-
robian MSS. Should the Bombay Parsis show any
real general interest in the rehabilitation of their
religion, I think I may promise them the gratu-
itous furtherance and assistance of Madame
Blavatsky, whose friend of thirty-seven years' stand-
ing. Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff, has just noti-
fied her of his appointment by the Czar as Viceroy
of the Caucasus.

In one of these old MSS., then, it is said of the
Initiate, or Magus, " He who would penetrate the
secrets of (sacred) Fire, and unite with it [as the
Yogi ' unites himself with the Universal Soul ']
must first unite himself soul and body to the
Earth, his mother^ to Humanity, his sister^ and to
Science, his daugJiterr Quite a different thing,
you perceive, from the abhorrent precept ascribed
to the Founder of your Mazdiasnian faith.

A curious and sad thing, indeed, it is to see
how completely the old life has gone out of
Zoroastrianism. Originally a highly spiritual
faith — I know of none more so — and represented
by sages and adepts of the highest rank among in-
itiates, it has shrunk into a purely exoteric creed ;
full of ritualist practices not understood, taught
by a numerous body of priests as a rule ignorant
of the first elements of spiritual philosophy ; re-
presented in prayers of which not one word has a

3IO THE SPIRIT OF THE

meaning to those who recite them daily : the shriv-
elled shell that once held a radiant soul. Yet all
that Zoroastrianism ever was it might be made
again. The light still shines, though in darkness,
enclosed in the clay vessel of materialism. Whose
shall be the holy hand to break the jar of clay and
let the hidden glory be seen ? Where is the
Mobed * who shall -in our day and generation rise
to the ancient dignity of his profession, and redeem
it from a degradation so deep as to compel
even a Parsi author (Dosabhoy Framjee, in
his able work on The Parsees, 8ic., p. 277) to say they
" recite parrot-like all the chapters requiring to be
repeated on occasions of religious ceremonies. . . .
Ignorant and unlearned as these priests are, they
do not and cannot command the respect of the
laity." ..." The position of the so-called spiritual
guides has fallen into contempt ; " and to add
that some priests have " given up a profession
which has ceased to be honourable and .... be-
come contractors for constructing railroads in the
Bombay Presidency." Some of the present Das-
turs " are intelligent and well-informed men, pos-
sessing a considerable knowledge of their religion ;

* Not before he learns the true meaning of his own name, and
strives once more to become worthy of it. How many among the
modern priests know that their title of Mobed or '' A/oghed," comei
from Mao^, a word used by the prophet Jeremiah to designate a
Babylonian Initiate, which, in its turn, is an abbreviation of Mag-
insiah — the great and wise? " Maghistom " was once the title of
Zoroaster's highest disciples, and the synonym of wisdom. Speak-
ing of them Cicero says : Sapioitiuni et doctoru/?i genus magoruni
habebattir in Pcrsis.

ZOROASTRTAN' RELIGION: 311

but the mass of the priesthood are profoundly
ignorant of its first principles." {^Ibid. p. 279.)

I ask you, men of practical sense, what is the
certain fate of a religion that has descended so low
that its priests are regarded by the Behedin as fit
only to be employed in menial services, such as
bringing things to you from the bazaar, and doing
household jobs of work ? Do you suppose that such
a dried corpse will be left long above ground by the
fresh and critical minds you are educating at college?
Nay, do you not see how they are already treating it;
how they abstain from visiting your temples ; how
sullenly they " make kusti," and go through their
other daily ceremonies ; how they avoid as much
as possible every attention to the prescribed ordi-
nances ; how they are gathering in clubs to drink
" pegs," and play cards ; how they are defiling
themselves by evil associations, smoking in secret,*
and some even openly, and prating glibly the most
sceptical sophistries they have read in European
books, written by deluded modern theorists ? Yes,
— the cloud gathers over the fire altar, the once
fragrant wood of Truth is wet with the deadly
dews of doubt, a pestilential vapour fills the Atash
Behnim, and unless some Regenerator be raised up
among you, the name of Zaratusht may, before
many generations, be known only as that of the
Founder of an extinct faith.

In his Preface to the translation of the Vcndidad

* No true Parsi smokes, as it is regarded as a profanation of the
sacred symbol Fire,

312 THE SPIRIT OF THE

Tvol. iv. of The Sacred Books of the East, edited by
Professor Max Miiller), the learned Dr. Darme-
steter says : " The key to the Avesta is not the
Pahlavi, but the Vedas. The Avesta and the
Vedas are two echoes of one and the same voice,
the reflex of one and the same thought : the Vedas,
therefore, are both the best lexicon and the best
commentary to the Avesta " (p. xxvi.). This he de-
fines as the extreme view of the Vedic scholars,
and while personally he does not subscribe to them
entirely, he yet holds that we cannot perfectly com-
prehend the Avesta without utilising the discover-
ies of the Vedic pandits. But neither Darmeste-
ter, nor Anquetil Duperron, nor Haug, nor Spiegel,
nor Sir William Jones, nor Rapp (whose work has
been so perfectly translated into English by the
eminent Parsi scholar, K. R. Cama), nor Roth, nor any
philological critic whose works I have come across
has named the true key to Zaratushta 's doctrine.
For it, we must not search among the dry bones of
words. No, it hangs within the door of the Kabala
— the Chaldean secret volume, where under the
mask of symbols and misleading phrases, it is kept
for the use of the pure searcher after arcane know-
ledge. The entire system of ceremonial purifica-
tions, which in itself is so perfect that a modern
Parsi — a friend of mine — has remarked that Zoro-
aster was the best of Health Officers, is, as it seems
to me, typical of the moral purification required of
him who would either, while living, attain the
Magian's knowledge of the hidden laws of Nature

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 313

and his power to wield them for good purposes, or,
after a well-ordered life, attain by degrees to the
state of spiritual beatitude, called Moksha by the
Hindus and Nirvana by the Buddhists. The de-
filements by touch of various objects that you arc
warned against, are not visible defilements, like that
of the person by contact with filth, but psychic de-
filements, through the influence of their bad mag-
netic aura — a subtle influence proceeding from
certain living organisms and inert substances —
which is antipathetic to development as an adept.
If you will compare your books with the Yoga
Sutras of the Hindus, and the Tripitikas of the
Buddhists, you will see that each exact for the
student and practitioner of Occult Science, a place,
an atmosphere, and surroundings that are perfectly
pure. Thus the Magus (or Yozdathraigur), the
Yogi and the Arahat, all retire, either to the inner-
most or topmost chambers of a temple, where no
stranger is permitted to enter (bringing his impure
magnetism with him), to the heart of a forest, a
secluded cave, or a mountain height. In the tower of
Belus at Babylon, virgin seeresses gazed into mag-
ical mirrors and aerolites, to see their prophetic
visions ; the Yogi retires to his subterranean gup/ia,
or to the jungle fastnesses ; and the Chinese books
tell us that the " Great Teachers " of the sacred
doctrine dwell in the " Snowy Range of the Hima-
vat" The books alleged to have been inspired by
God, or by him or his angels delivered to man,
have always, I believe, been delivered on moun-

314 THE SPIRIT OF THE

tains. Zaratusht got the Avesta on Ushidarinna,
a mountain by the river Daraga (Vendidad xHx.) ;
Moses received the tables of the Law on Mount
Sinai (Exodus xxxiv.) ; the Koran was given
to Mahommed on Mount Hara ; and the
Hindu Rishis lived in the Himalayas. Sakya
Muni left no inspired books ; but, although
he received the illumination of the Buddhaship in
the plains, under a Bo-tree, he had prepared him-
self by years of austerities in the mountains near
Rajagriha. The obstructive power of foul human,
animal, vegetable, and even mineral auras or mag-
netisms, has always been understood by occult
students, from the remotest times. This is the true
reason why none but initiated and consecrated
priests have ever been allowed to step within the
precincts of the holiest places. The custom is not
at all the offspring of any feeling of selfish exclu-
siveness, but based upon known psycho-physiologi-
cal laws. Even the modern spiritualists and mes-
merists know this ; and the latter, at least, care-
fully avoid " mixing magnetisms," which always
hurts a sensitive subject. All Nature is a compound
of conflicting, and therefore of counterbalancing and
equilibrating forces. Without this there could be no
such thing as stability. Is it not the contest of the
centrifugal and centripetal attractions that keeps
cur earth, and every other orb of heaven, re-
volving in its orbit ? The law of the Universe is a
distinct Dualism while the creative energy is at
work, and of a compound Unism when at rest.

ZOR OASIRIAN RELIGION: 3 1 5

And the personification of these opposing powers
by Zaratusht was but the perfectly scientific and
philosophical statement of a profound truth. The
secret laws of this war of forces are taught in the
Chaldean Kabala. Every neophyte who sets him-
self to study for initiation is taught these secrets,'
and he is made to prove them by his own experi-
ments, step by step, as his powers and knowledge
increase. Zoroastrianism has two sides — the open,
or patent, and the concealed, or secret. Born out
of the mind of a Bactrian seer, it partakes of the
nature of the primitive Iranian national religion and
of the clear spirituality that was poured into it,
from the source of all truth, through the superb
lens of Zoroaster's mind.

The Parsis have been charged with being wor-
shippers of the visible fire. This is wholly false.
They face the fire, as also they do the sun and the
sea, because in these they picture to themselves the
Hidden Light of Lights, source of all Life, to which
they give the name of Hormazd. How well and
how beautifully is this expressed in the writings of
Robert Fludd, an English mystic of the seventeenth
century (see ]\Ir. Hargrave Jennings's Rosicj^ucians^
p. 69 et seq) : " Regard Fire, then, with other eyes
than with those soul-less, incurious ones with which
thou hast looked upon it as the most ordinary
thing. Thou hast forgotten what it is — or rather
thou hast never known. Chemists are silent about
it. Philosophers talk of it as anatomists dis-
course of the constitution (or the parts) of the

3i6 THE SPIRIT OF THE

human body. It is made for man and this
world, and it is greatly like him — that is, mean
they would add. But is this all ? Is this the
sum of that casketed lamp of the human body ?
— thine own body, thou unthinking world's machine
— thou man ! Or, in the fabric of this clay lamp
[what a beautiful simile!] burnetii there not a
Light ? Describe that, ye Doctors of Physics !
Note the goings of the Fire. Think that this
thing is bound up in matter chains. Think
that He is outside of all things, and deep in the in-
side of all things ; and that thou and thy world are
only the tiling between ; and that outside and inside
are both identical, couldst thou understand the
supernatural truths ! Reverence Fire (for its mean-
ing) and tremble at it. Avert the face from
it, as the Magi turned, dreading, and (as the
Symbol) bowed askance. Wonder no longer
then, if, rejected so long as an idolatry, the
ancient Persians, and their Masters, the Magi — con-
cluding that they saw ' All ' in this supernaturally
magnificent element — fell down and worshipped it ;
making of it the visible representation of the very
truest, but yet, in man's speculation, and in his phil-
osophies— nay, in his commonest reason — impos-
sible God."

And, mind you, this is the language, not of a
Parsi or one of your faith, but of an English scholar
who followed the shining path marked out by the
Chaldean Magi, and obtained, like them, the true
meaning of your Mysteries. Occult Science is the

ZOR OAS TRTAN RELIGION. 3 1 7

vindication of Zoroastrianisni, and there is none
other. Modern physical Science is herself blind to
spiritual laws and spiritual phenomena. She can-
not guide, being herself in need of a helping hand —
the hand of the Occultist and the Hierophant
Chaldean sage.

Have you thought zvhy the Fire is kept ever
burning on your altars ? Why may not the
priest suffer it to go out and re-kindle it again
each morning ? Ah ! there is a great secret hidden.
And why must the flames of one thousand different
fires be collected — from the smithy, the burning-
kiln, the funeral pyre, the goldsmith's furnace, and
every other imaginable source ? Because this
spiritual element of Fire pervades all nature, is
its life and soul, is the cause of the motion of its
molecules which produces the phenomenon of
physical heat. And the fires from all these thou-
sand hearths are collected, like so many fragments
of the universal life, into one sacrificial blaze which
shall be as perfectly as possible the complete and
collective type of the light of Hormazd. Observe
the precautions taken to gather only the spirit or
cjuintessence, as it were, of these separate flames.
The priest takes not the crude coals from the var-
ious hearths and furnaces and pits ; but at each
flame he lights a bit of sulphur, a ball of cotton, or
some other inflammable substance ; from this sec-
ondary blaze he ignites a second quantity of fuel ;
from this a third ; from the third a fourth, and so
on : taking in some cases a ninth, in others a twcn-

3i8 THE SPIRIT OF THE

tieth flame, until the first grossness of the defile-
ment of the fire in the base use to which it was put
has been purged, and only the purest essence re-
mains. Then only, is it fit to be placed upon the
altar of Hormazd. And even then the flame is not
ready to be the type of that Eternal Brightness ; it
is as yet but a body of earthly flame, a body which
lacks its noblest soul. When your forefathers
gathered at Sanjan to light the fire for the Indian
exiles, the great Dastur Darab, who had come with
them from Persia, gathered his people and the
strangers of the country about him in the jungle.
Upon a stone block the dried sandal-wood was laid.
Four priests stood at the four cardinal points. The
Gathas are intoned, the priests bow their faces in
reverential awe. The Dastur raises his eyes to hea-
ven, he recites the mystical words of power ; lo !
the fire from the upper world of space descends,
and with its silvery tongues laps round the fragrant
wood, which bursts into a blaze. This is the mis-
sing spirit evoked by the adept Prometheus. When
tJiis is added to the thousand other dancing flames
the Symbol is perfected, and the face of Hormazd
shines before his worshippers. Lighted thus at
Sanjan, that historic fire has been kept alive for
more than seven hundred years, and until another
Darab appears among you to draw the flame of the
ambient ether upon your altar, let it be fed con-
tinuously.

This ancient art of drawing" fire from heaven was
taught in the Samothracian and Kabeiric mysteries.

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGIO.V. 319

Numa who Introduced the Vestal mysteries Into
Rome, thus kindled a fire Vv^hlch was under the care
of consecrated Vestal Virgins, whose duty It was,
under penalty of death for neglect, constantly to
maintain It. It was, as Schwelgger shows, the
Hermes fire, the Elmes fire of the ancient Germans,
the lightning of Cybele ; the torch of Apollo ; the
fire of Pan's altar ; the fire-flame of Pluto's helm ;
the Inextinguishable fire In the temple of the Gre-
cian Athene, on the Acropolis of Athens, and the
mystical fires of many different worships and sym-
bols. The Occult Science, of which I spoke, was
shared by the Initiates of the Sacred Science all
over the ancient world. The knowledge was first
gained In Chaldea, and was thence spread througli
Greece to more Western and Northern countries.
Even to-day the P'lre-Cult survives among the rude
Indian tribes of Arizona — a far Western portion
of America. Major Calhoun, of the U. S. Army,
who commanded a surveying party sent out by
our Government, told me, that In that remote
corner of the world, and among those rude people,
he found them keeping alight their Sacred P'Ire In
their teocalis^ or holy enclosures. Every morning
their priests go out, dressed in the sacerdotal robes
of their forefathers, to salute the rising sun. In the
hope that Montezuma, their promised Redeemer
and Liberator, will appear. The time of his com-
ing is not foretold, but from generation to genera-
tion they wait, and pray, and hope.

In her his Unveiled, Madame Blavatsky has

320 THE SPIRIT OF THE

shown US that this heavenly fire, however and when-
ever manifested, is a correlation of the Akasa, and
that the art of the Magician and the Priest enables
one to develop and attract it down. But to do
this you must be absolutely pure — in body, in
thought, in deed. And these are the three pillars
upon which Zaratusht erected the stately edifice of
his religion. I have always considered it as a great
test of the merit of any religion that its essence can
be compressed into a few words that a child can
understand. Buddhism, with its noble comprehen-
siveness, was distilled by its Founder into seven
words ; Zoroastrianism is reduced to three — Hoin-
7ite, Hukhate, Viirushte.^

A Parsi gentleman, with whom I was conversing
the other day, explained the fact of your having no
wonder-working priests at present, by saying that
none living was pure enough. He was right, and
until you can find such a pure celebrant, your re-
.ligion will never be again reanimated. An impure
man who attempts the magical ceremonies is liable
to be made mad or destroyed. This is a scientific
necessity. The law of nature is, you know, that
action and reaction are equal. If, therefore, the
operator in the M)'steries propels from himself a
current of will-power directed against a certain ob-
ject, and — either because of feebleness of will, or
deviation caused by impure motives — he misses his
mark, his current rebounds from the whole body of
the Akasa (as the ball rebounds from the wall against

* Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds,

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION: 321

which It is thrown to the thrower's hand) and reacts
upon himself. We are told that they who did not
know how to manage the miraculous fire in the
Vestal and Kabeiric mysteries " were destroyed by
it, and were punished by the Gods " (Ennemoser.
Hist, of Magic, ii. 32). Pliny relates {Histor. Nat.
xxviii., 2) that Tullus Hostilius had sought from
the books of Numa " Jovem devocare a coelo ;" but
as he did not correctly follow the rules of Numa,
he was struck by the lightning. This same rule
applies equally to the attempt to use the Black
Art unskilfully. The old English proverb says,
" Curses, like fowls, come home to roost." He who
would use the powers of Sorcery, or Black Magic,
is sure to be destroyed by them first or last. The
old fables about sorcerers being carried off by the
mocking " devils " whom, for a time, they had em-
ployed to gratify their unlawful desires, are all
based upon fact. And, in Zoroastrianism, the Parsi
is as carefully taught to eschew and fight against
the powers of Ahriman, or the Evil Spirits of Dark-
ness, as to cultivate intimacy with and win the pro-
tecting favour of the Ameshaspentas and Yazatas
— the personified good principles of Nature. You
will not find any of your European authorities
speaking of these personifications with decent re-
spect, any more than of the nature-gods of the
Aryans. To their minds these are but the childish
fancies of a florid Persian or Aryan imagination,
begotten in the infancy of our race. Eor a good
reason too; not one of these spectacled pandits has

322 THE SPIRIT OF THE

the least practical reason to believe that there are
such good and evil powers warring about us. But
I am not afraid to say to them all in my individual,
not official, capacity, that I do believe in them ;
nay, that I actually know they exist. And this is
why you hear me, a Western man taught in a
Western University and nursed on the traditions of
modern civilization, say that Zaratushta knew more
about nature than Tyndall does, more about the
laws of Force than Balfour Stewart, more about the
origin of species than Darwin or Haeckel, more
about the human mind and its potentialities than
Maudesley or Bain. And so did Buddha, and some
other ancient proficients in Occult Science. Pshaw !
Young man of Bombay University, when you
have taken your degree, and learnt all your pro-
fessors can teach you, go to the hermit and the re-
cluse of the jungle and ask Jiim to prove to you
where to begin your real study of the world into
which you have been born ! Your professors can
make you learned but not wise, can teach you about
the shell of Nature, but those silent and despised
unravellers of the tangled web of existence can
evoke for you the soul that lurks within that sheath.
Three centuries before Christ the united kingdom
of Persia and Media exercised a dominion extend-
ing over an area of three or four millions of square
miles, and had a population of several hundred
millions of people. And do you mean to tell me
that the Zoroastrian religion could have dominated
the minds of this enormous mass of people — nearly

ZOROASTRTAN RELIGION. 323

twice the present population of India — and could
have also swayed the religious thought of the cul-
tured Greeks and Romans, if it had not had a
spiritual life in it that its poor remnant of to-day
completely lacks ? I tell you that if you could put
that ancient life back into it, and if you had your
Darabs and your Abads to show this ignorant age
the proof of the reality of the old Chaldean wisdom,
you would spread your religion all over the world.
For the age is spiritually dying for want of some
religion that can show just such signs, and for lack
of them two crores of intelligent Western people
have become Spiritualists and are following the
lead of mediums. And not only your religion is
soulless : Hinduism is so, Southern Buddhism is
so, Judaism and Christianity are so likewise. We
see following the missionaries none of the " signs "
that Jesus said should follow those who were really
his disciples : they neither raise the dead, nor heal
the sick, nor give sight to the blind, nor cast out
devils, nor dare they drink any deadly thing in the
faith that it will not harm them. There are a few^
true wonder-workers in our time, but they are
among the Lamaists of Tibet, the Copts of Egypt,
the Sufis and Dervishes of Arabia and other Mahom-
medan countries. The great body of the people,
in all countries, are become so sensual, so avaricious,
so materialistic and faithless, that their moral at-
mosphere is like a pestilential wind to the Yozda-
thraigur (those adepts whom we have made known
to India under the name of Mahatmas).

324 THE SPIRIT OF THE

It

The meaning of your Haoma you doubtless
know. In the ninth Yaqna of the Avesta, Haoma
is spoken of both as a god — a Yazata — and the
plant, or the juice of the plant, which is under his
especial protection, and so is the Soma of the
" Aitareya Brdviana''

" At the time of the morning-dawn came

1. Haoma to Zarathustra.

2. As he was purifying the fire and reciting

the Gathas.

3. Zarathustra asked him : Who, O man, art

thou ?

4. Thou, who appearest to me as the most

beautiful in the whole corporeal world,
endued with thine own life, majestic and
immortal ?

5. Then answered me Haoma, the pure, who

is far from death.

6. Ask me, thou pure one, make me ready for

food."

Thus, in the same line, Is Haoma spoken of in
his personified form and as a plant to be prepared
for food.

Further on he is described as

52. "Victorious, golden, with moist stalks."

This Is the sacred Soma of the Aryans — by them
also elevated into a deity. This is that wondrous
juice which lifted the mind of him who quaffed it
to the splendours of the higher heavens, and made

ZOROAS TRIA N RELIGION. 325

him commune with the gods. It was not stupify-
ing hke opium, nor maddening like the Indian
hemp, but exhilarating, illuminating, the begetter
of divine visions. It was given to the candidate in
the ]\Iysteries, and drunk with solemn ceremony
by the Hierophant. Its ancient use is still kept in
your memories by the Mobed's drinking, in the
YaQna ceremony, a decoction of dried Haoma stalks,
that have been pounded with bits of pomegranate
root in a mortar, and afterwards had water thrice
poured over them.

The Baresma twigs— among you represented by
a bunch of brass wires ! — are a reminiscence of the
divining-rods anciently used by all practitioners of
ceremonial magic. The rod or staff was also given
to the fabled gods of Mythology. In the fifth book
of the Odyssey, Jupiter, in the council of the gods,
bids Hermes go upon a certain mission, and the
verse says —

" Forth sped he,

Then taking his staff, with which he the eye-
lids of mortals

Closes at will, and the sleeper at will, re-
awakens."

The rod of Hermes w^as a magic staff; so was
that of ^sculapaios, the healing wand that had
power over disease. The Bible has many references
to the magic rod, notably, in the story of the con-
test of Moses with the Egyptian Magicians in the
presence of Pharaoh, in that of the magical budding

326 THE SPIRIT OF THE

of Aaron's rod, the laying of Elisha's staff on the
face of the dead Shunamlte boy, &c. The Hindu
gossein of our day carries with him a bamboo rod
having seven knots or joints, that has been given
to him by his Guru and contains the concentrated
magnetic will-power of the Guru. All magic-rods
should be hollow, that the magnetic power may be
stored in them. In the Yagna II., note that the
Priest, holding the Baresma rods in his hand, re-
peats constantly the words " I wish " — properly, I
^vill — so and so. By the ceremony of consecration of
the sacred twigs a magical power had been imparted
to them, and with the help of this to fortify his own
will-force, the celebrant seeks the attainment of his
several good desires, the heavenly Fire, the good
spirits, all good influences throughout the several
Kingdoms of Nature, and the law or Word. In
the middle ages of Europe, divining-rods were in
general use, not only to discover subterranean
waters and springs, and veins of metal, but also
fuo-itive thieves and murderers. I could devote an

o

entire lecture to this subject and prove to you that
this phenomenon is a strictly scientific one. In Mr.
Baring Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
will be found highly interesting accounts of these
trials of the mystical power of the rods, which time
forbids my quoting. At this day the rods are em-
ployed to discover springs, and the Cornish miners
carry sprigs of hazel or other wood in their caps.
The author of the above work, while ascribing the
strange results he is obliged to record principally

ZOROAS'IKIAN RELIGION. 327

to the imagination, is }'et constrained to add that
" the powers of Nature are so mysterious and in-
scrutable that we must be cautious in hmiting them,
under abnormal conditions, to the ordinary laws of
experience." And in this he is supported by the
experience of many generations of witnesses, in
many different countries.

We have mentioned the invocation of the divine
Word or Name in the Yaqna. All the ancient
authorities affirm that there is a certain Word of
Power by pronouncing which the adept subjugates
all the forces of Nature to his will. It is men-
tioned by many writers. One of the latest is the
author of a book called Rabbi JesJiua, who, speaking
of Jesus, says, " He had perhaps endeavoured to
employ magic arts, and to bewitch the council by
invocation of the Name through which all incanta-
tions were rendered effective" (p. 143). Among
the Aryans the Agnihotra priest used to prepare
the sacrificial wood and, upon reciting the appro-
priate Mantra, the heavenly fire of Agni would
descend and kindle it. In the Avesta, Zaratusht
smites the fiends with the spiritual power of the
Word (Darmesteter, Ixxvii.). It represents him as
a saint-militant, repelling force by force. In Far-
gard XL, Zarathustra asks Ahura Mazda how he
shall purge the house, the fire, the water, the earth,
the cow, the tree, the faithful man and woman,
the stars, the moon, the sun, the boundless
light, and all good things ? Ahura Mazda
answers : —

328 THE SPIRIT OF THE

" Thus shalt thou chant the cleansing words and
the house shall be clean, clean shall be the
fire, &c., &c.

" So thou shalt say these fiend-smiting and
most-healing words, thou shalt chant the
Ahura Vairya five times, &c.'^

Then are given various words to employ foi
different acts of cleansing. But tJie WORD, the
one most potent — the name which, so says Proclus
in his treatise upon the Chaldean Oracles — " rushes
into the infinite worlds," is not written there.* Nor
can it be written, nor is it ever pronounced above
the breath, nor, indeed, is its nature known except
to the highest initiates. The efficacy of all words
used as charms and spells lies in what the Aryans
call the Vach, a certain latent power resident in
Akasa. Physically, we may describe it as the
power to set up certain measured vibrations, not
in the grosser atmospheric particles whose undula-
tions beget light, sound, heat and electricity, but
in the latent spiritual principle or Force — about
the nature of which modern Science knows scarcety
anything. No words whatever have the slightest
efficacy unless uttered by one who is perfectly free
from all weakening doubt or hesitancy, who is for the
moment wholly absorbed in the thought of utter-
ing them, and who has a cultivated power of will which
makes him send out from himself a conquering

* Though properly the WORD or the NAME is neither a word nor
a name, in the sense in which we use either expression.

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 329

impulse. Spoken prayer is, in fact, an incantation,
and when spoken by the " heart," as well as by the
lips, has a power to attract good and repel bad
influences. But to patter off prayers so many
times a day while your thoughts are roving over
your landed estates, fumbling your money-bags,
or straying away among any other worldly
things, is mere waste of breath. The Scrip-
ture says, "the prayer of the righteous availeth
much." There is the case of George Miiller,
of Bath, who for thirty years has supported the
entire expenses of his Orphanage — now a very
large institution of charity — by the voluntary gifts
of unknown passers-by at the door, who drop into
his charity-boxes tJie exact sum he prays for \.o meet
the day's necessities. History does not contain a
more curious or striking example than this. This
man prays with such faith and fervency, his motives
are so pure, his labours so beneficent, that he at-
tracts to him all the good influences of Nature,
although he knows neither the " Ahura Vairyal'
nor the Aryan Mantras^ nor the Buddhist Pirit.
Use what words you may, if the heart be clean,
the thought intense, the will concentrated,
and the powers of Nature will come at your
bidding and be your slaves. Says the Dabistan
(p. 2) :—

" Having the heart in the body full of thy re-
membrance, the novice, as well as the
adept, in conteviplation

330 THE SPIRIT OF THE

" Becomes a supreme king of beatitude, and
the throne of the kingdom of gladness.

" Whatever road I took, it joined the street
which leads to Thee ;

" The desire to know thy being is also the life
of the meditators ;

" He who found that there Is nothing but
Thee, has found Thee, has found \X\^ final
knowledge ;

'•' The Mobed is the teacher of thy truth, and
the world a school."

But this Mobed was not a mere errand-runner,
or perfunctory droner of Gathas, understanding
no word he was saying, but a real Mobed.
So high an ideal of human perfectibility had he to
live up to, that Cambyses is said to have commanded
the execution of a priest who had allowed himself
to be bribed, and had his skin stretched over the
chair in which his son and successor sat in his
judicial capacity {Hist, Magic, i., 2). "Mobed" Is
derived from Mogbed — from the Persian Mog, and
means a true priest. Ennemoser truly says that
the renowned wisdom of the Magi in Persia, Media,
and the neighbouring countries, " contained also
the secret teachings of philosophy and the sciences,
which were only comaiunicated to priests, who
were regarded as mediators between God and man,
and as such, and on account of their knozvledge, were
highly respected" {Ibid). The priests OF A

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 331

PEOPLE ARE EXACTLY WHAT THE PEOPLE RE-
QUIRE THEM TO 13E. Remember that, friends, and
blame yourselves only for the state of religion
among you. You have just what you are entitled to.
If you yourselves were purer, more spiritually-
minded, more religious, your priesthood would be
so too. You are merchants, not idolators, but — as
Prof. Monier Williams pithily remarks in the
Nineteenth Century (March, 1881) — worshippers of
the solid rupee. The genuine Parsi, he says,
" turns with disgust from the hideous idolatry
practised by his Hindu fellow-subjects. He offers
no homage to blocks of wood and stone, to mon-
strous many-headed images, grotesque symbols of
good luck, or four-armed deities of fortune. But
he bows down before the silver image which
Victoria, the Empress of India, has set up in her
Indian dominions."

And this, according to Zoroastrianism, is a crime
as great. In his ecstatic vision of the symbolical
scenes shown him by the angel Seroshizad, for the
warning and encouragement of his people, Ardai
Viraf, the purest of Magian priests at the court of
Ardeshir Babagan, saw the pitiable state to which
the soul of a covetous money-hoarder is reduced
after death. The poor wretch — penniless, since he
could take not a dlrein with him — his heart buried
with his savagely-loved treasures, his once pure
nature corrupted and deformed, moved the seer to
profoundest pity. " I saw it," says he, " creep
along in fear and trembling, and presently a wind

332 THE SPIRIT OF THE

came sweeping along, laden with the most pesti-
lential vapours, even as it were from the boundaries
of hell. In the midst of this wind ap-
peared a form of the most demoniacal appear-
ance." The terrified soul attempts to escape,
but in vain ; the awful, vengeful shape by voice
and power roots him to the spot. He inquires in
trembling accents whom it may be, and is an-
swered, " I am your genius [that is, his spiritual
counterpart and now his mastering destiny], and
have become thus deformed by your crimes (whilst
you were innocent, I was handsome). You
have laid in no provisions for this long journey ;
you were rich, but did no good with your
riches ; and not only did no good yourself,
but prevented, by your evil example, those whose
inclinations led them to do good ; and you have
often mentally said, ' When is the day of judgment ?
To me it will never arrive'" {Ardai Viraf NaineJi^
by Capt. J. A. Pope, p. 56). Say it is a vision, if
you will ; nevertheless it mirrors an awful truth.
The w^orship of the silver image of Victoria on the
rupee is even more degrading than the Hindu's
worship of Ganesha or Hari ; for he, at least, is
animated by a pious thought, whereas the greedy
money-getter is but defiling himself with the filth
of selfishness.

The Parsi community is already half-way along
the road to apostasy. The fiery enthusiasm is gone
that made your forefathers abandon everything they
prized rather than repudiate their faith ; that sup-

ZOROASTRlAiY RELIGION. 333

ported them during a whole century in the sterile
mountains of Khorasan or the out-lying deserts ;
that comforted them in their exile at Sanjan, and
gave them hope after the battle with their here-
ditary enemy Aluf Khan. Formerly, it was Re-
ligion first and the Rupee last ; now it is the Rupee
first, and everything else after. See, I, a stranger,
point wath one finger to your palatial bungalows,
your gorgeous equipages, your ostentatious
annual squandering of twelve lakhs of money at
festivals ; with the other to your comparatively
paltry subscriptions for the study and resuscitation
of your religion. The proverb says, " Figures
cannot lie," and in this instance they do not. If I
wanted the best test to apply to your real religious
zeal, I should look at the sum of your expenditure
for vain show and sensual enjoyment, as compared
with what you do for the maintenance of your re-
ligion in its purity, and at the sort of conduct you
tolerate in your priests. That is the mirror which
impartial justice holds up before you ; behold your
own image, and converse with conscience in your
private moments. What but conscience is personi-
fied in the " maid, of divine beauty or fiendish
ugliness," according as the soul that approaches
the Chinvad bridge was good or bad in life ?
( YasJit. xxii.)

She, " the well-shapen, strong, and tall-formed
maid, with the dogs at her sides, one who
can distinguish, and is of high 7in-
derstandijig^' {Avesta, Fargard xix.)?

334 THE SPIRIT OF THE

You have asked me to tell you about the spirit
of 3"our religion. I have only the truth to tell —
the exact truth, without fear or favour. And I
repeat, you have already set money in the niche of
faith ; it only remains for you to throw the latter
out of doors. For hypocrisy will not last for ever.
Men weary of paying even lip-service to a religion
they no longer respect. You may deceive your-
selves ; you cannot deceive that maiden at the
bridge. Let three or four more generations of
sceptics be passed through the educational mint of
the College ; let the teaching of your religion be
nep^lected as it now is ; and the time will have
come when it will be only the occasional brave
heart that will dare call himself a Mazdiasnian.
Let that stand as a prophecy if you choose ; as
a prophecy based upon the experience of the
human race. A black page will it be indeed, in
the record of events, when the last vestige
of the once splendid faith of Zarathushta shall be
blotted from it, the last spark of the heavenly fire
that shone from the Chaldean watch-towers of the
sages be extinguished. And the more so, if
that last extinction shall be caused, not by the
sword of tyranny, nor by the crafty scheming of
civil administrators, but by the soulless worldliness
of its own hereditary custodians ; those to whom
the licfhted torch had been handed down throuc^h
the ages, and who dropped it into the quenching
black waters of materialism.

Time fails me to enter into detailed explanation

ZOKOASTKIAN RELIGION. 335

of the Zoroastrian symbols, as perhaps I might ;
though I certainly am not able to do the subject
full justice. The siidra and ktisti^ with which you
invest your children at the age of six years and
three months have, of course, a magical signifi-
cance. They pass through the hands of the
Dastur, who, as we have seen, was formerly an
initiate, and he imparted to them magnetic pro-
perties which converted them into talismans against
evil influences. After that a set formula of prayers
and incantations is regularly prescribed for the
whole life. The wearers' thoughts are directed
towards the talismanic objects constantly, and
when faith is present, their will-power, or
magnetic aura, is at such times infused into them.
This is the secret of all talismans ; the object worn,
whatever it may be, need have no innate pro-
tective property ; for that can be given to any rag,
stone, or scrap of paper, by an adept. Those of
you who have read the Christian Bible will remem-
ber that from the body of Paul, the Apostle,
"were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or
aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and
tJie evil spirits ivent ottt of them'' (Acts xix. 12).
In the Ormazd-Yasht of the KJiordaJi-Avesta (25),
it is written " by day and night, standing or sitting,
girt with the Aiwyaonhana {kiLsti) or drawing off
the Aiwyfionhana,

* A gauzy muslin shirt, and a peculiar holy thread, made of fine
wool woven by the wives of Parsi priests with certain invocatory
charms.

336 THE SPIRIT OF THE

" Going forwards out of the house, going forwards
out of the confederacy, going forwards out
of the region, coming into a region,

" Such a man the points of the Drukhs-souled,
proceeding from Aeshma, will not injure in
that day or that night, not the slings, not
the arrows, not knives, not clubs ; the mis-
siles will not penetrate (and) he be in-
jured" (Hang's Avesta^ p. 24, KJiordah-
Avesta, Eng. ed. of 1864).

Similar protective talismans are given by every
adept to each new pupil.

The use oi Nirang^ for libations and ablutions is
a survival of very ancient — probably pre-Iranian —
mythic conceptions. There is nothing in the fluid
itself of a disinfectant or purificatory character, but
a magical property is given to it by ceremonial
magical formulas, as a glass of common water may
be converted into a valuable medicine by a mes-
merizer holding it in the left hand and mak-
ing circular passes over it with the right. The
subject is treated in Darmesteter s Introduction to
the Vcndidad (Ixxxviii.) " The storm floods that
cleanse the sky of the dark flends in it were
described in a class of myths as the urine of a
eisrantic animal in the heavens. As the floods
from the bull above drive away the fiend from the
god, so they do from man here below^, they make
him ' free fi'om the death-demon' {frdnasit), and the

* Pvuified urine of the- cow.

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 337

death-fiend flees away hellwards, pursued by the
fiend - smiting spell : ' Perish thou, O Dru^ !
never more to give over to Death the Hving world
of the good spirit ! '" It may be that there is a
more valid reason for the use of Nirang, but I
have not yet discovered it. That an occult pro-
perty is imparted to the fluid by the ceremonial is
clear ; since, if it be exposed to certain influences
not in themselves putrefactive, it will speedily be-
come putrid ; while, on the other hand, it may be
kept for years in a fresh condition without the
admixture of antiseptic substances, and notwith-
standing its occasional exposure to the air, if
certain ceremonial rules be followed. (Of course
I have this from Parsi friends, and not from my
own observation : I would not express an un-
qualified opinion before investigating the subject.)
I recommend some Parsi chemist to analyse speci-
mens of different ages, especially to determine the
relative qualities of nitrogenous constituents.

When Professor Monier Williams vents his
Oxonian scorn upon the ceremonies of the Parsis, he
only provokes the smile of such as have
looked deeper than he into the meaning of ancient
symbolism. " Here and there," says he, " lofty
conceptions of the Deity, deep philosophical
thoughts, and a pure morality, are discoverable in
the Avesta, like green spots in the desert ; but they
are more than netitralised by the silly puerilities and
degrading super stitioiLS ideas which crop up as
plentifully in its pages as thorns and thistles in a

338 THE SPIRIT OF THE

wilderness of sand." {^Nineteenth Century^ January,
1 88 1, p. 176.) Mr. Joseph Cook, the other day in this
hall, said something to the same effect. The good
portions of the Vedas were so few as compared
with the trashy residuum, that he likened them to
the fabled jewel -in the head of a filthy toad ! It is
really very condescending of these white pandits to
admit that there is anything whatever except
rottenness and puerility in the old religions !

In w^iat has been said I have, you must remem-
ber, been speaking from the standpoint of a Parsi.
I have tried to sink my personality and my per-
sonal religious preferences for the moment, and to
put myself in your place. That is the cardinal policy
of the Theosophical Society. It has itself no
sectarian basis, but its motto is the Universal
Brotherhood of man. It was organized to bring
to light the long-buried truths of not one, but all
the world's archaic religions. Its members are of all
respectable castes, all faiths and races. Many in-
telligent Parsis are amonq- them. For their sake
and for that of their co-religionists, this lecture has
been given. I have tried most earnestly to induce
one of them, or some other Parsi, to come forward
and show you that no religion has profounder
spiritual truths concealed under its familiar
mask than yours. That I am the incom-
petent though willing spokesman for the ancient
Yozdathraigurs is your fault, not mine. If I have
spoken truth, if I have suggested new thoughts,
if I have given any encouragement to the

ZOK OASTRIA N RELIGION. 339

pious, or pleasure to the learned, my reward is
ample.

" ZatJui aJiu Sahyo : — The riches of Vohumano
shall be given to him who works in this world for
Mazda," is the promise of the Avesta (Fargard
xxi.). Bear it in mind, ye Mazdiasnians,
and remember the maiden and her dogs by the
Chinvat Bridge. I say this especially to my Parsi
brothers in our Society ; for I have the right to
speak to them as an elder to a junior. As Parsis
they have a paramount duty to their co-religionists,
who are retrograding morally for want of the pure
light. As Theosophists, their interest embraces
all their fellow-men of whatever creed. For we
read in one of the most valuable of all books for the
thoughtful Parsi — the Dabistan, or School of
Maimers :

" The world is a book full of knowledge and of

justice,
The binder of which book is Destiny, and the

binding the beginning and the end ;
The future of it is the law, and the leaves are the

religious persuasions. * * "

For three years we have been preaching this idea
of mutual toleration and Universal Brotherhood
here in Bombay. Some have listened, but more
have turned a deaf ear. Nay, they have done
worse — they have spread lies and calumnies about
us, until we were made to appear to you in false
light. But the tide is turning at last, and public

340 THE SPIRIT OF THE

sympathy is slowly setting-in in our favour. It has
been a dark night for us ; it is now sunrise. If you
can see a good motive behind us, an honest
purpose to do good by spreading truth, will you not
join us as you have joined other societies, and help to
make us strong ? We can perhaps be of service in
aiding you to learn something more than you know
about the spirit of Zoroastrianism. As I said
before, there are many important secrets to be ex-
tracted from ancient MSS. in Armenia. Perhaps
they may be got at if you will join together and
send some thoroughly competent Parsi scholars to
make the search, in co-operation with the Tiflis
Archaeological Society. See how the Christians
have organised a Palestine Exploration Society, to
search for anything in the shape of proof that can
be found to corroborate their Bible. For years
they have kept engineers and archaeologists at
work. Is your religion less important to you ? Or
do you mean to sit on your guineas until the last old
MS. has been burned to kindle Armenian fires, or
torn to wrap medicines and sweets in, as I have often
seen Bibles utilised in India and Ceylon by heathen
borahs ? One of our members (see TheosopJiist for
July, 1881) wxnt over the most important ground a
few months ago. At the monastery of Soorb
Ovanness in Armenia there were in 1877 three
superannuated priests; of these but one now remains.
The " library of books and old manuscripts heaped
up as waste paper in every corner of the pillar-cells,
tempting no Kurd, are scattered over the rooms."

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 341

And he adds that "for the consideration of a
dagger and a few silver abazes, I got several pre-
cious manuscripts from him," — the old priest.
Now does not this suggest to you that through
the friendly intermediation of our Society, and the
help of Madame Blavatsky, you may be able to
secure exceptional advantages in the matter of
archaeological and philological research connected
with Zoroastrianism ? We do not ask you to join
us for our benefit, but for your own. I have
thrown out the idea ; act upon it or not as you
choose.* Beaten with Parsi children's shoes oueht
that Parsi to be who next gives a gaudy nautch or
wedding tainasha, unless he has previously sub-
scribed as liberally as his means allow towards a
fund for the promotion of his religion.

At the fifth annual meeting (in September last)
of the Archaeological Society of Tiflis, Caucasus, a
very valuable report was made by Count Ouvarof,
the Nestor of Russian archaeologists and Founder
of the Society, upon recent explorations and
discoveries in the districts formerly inhabited by
the Mazdiasnians. This Caucasian Viceroyalty
was once the heart of ancient Parsiism. It includes
Armenia, Derbent, Osetya, and the land of the
Khabardines, besides other countries that should
be explored by your agents. Among the curious

* The suggestion was taken up, and shortly after a Parsi Archaeo-
logical Society was organized at Bombay. But the wealthy class
have not as yet subscribed funds, and nothing practical has hitherto
been accomplished.

342 THE SPIRIT OF THE

facts brought to light, it was discovered that the old
Mazdiasnians had two kinds of burial structures — one
for use in hot weather, the other for the winter season.
They found proofs that your faith was not less than
1 1,000 years old: which bears rather hard upon those
authors (among them your own countryman, Dosab-
hoy Framjee) who date its birth from the time of
the appearance, in the sixth century B.C., of a certain
Zarathushta at the court of Darius Hystaspes !
The learned Count Ouvarof says that the Ossetines,
a warlike mountain tribe of half Christianized
Mahommedans, formerly Mazdiasnians, to this day
bring a dog to look at the corpse before sepulture.
In Tibet, too, towards the Northern border, the
corpse is exposed to the view of a dog and a djak
— a bird of prey, perhaps of the vulture species.
Throughout Tibet the corpses of all but Lamas of
the higher grades are given to be eaten by a breed
of sacred dogs bred for the purpose. The Lamas
above referred to are either burned, or embalmed
and entombed in a sitting posture. I have been
unable to learn from any Parsi, even from
the most intelligent I have consulted, the ex-
planation of this ancient custom of exposing the
corpse to inspection by dogs. Upon inquiry in
another direction, however, I am told that its orig-
inal purpose was to show the dog that here was
food for him, and that immediately after seeing it,
the animal would rush off to its fellows and bring
a whole pack to share in the repast. His instinct
(or should we rather say his mesmeric sensitive-

ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION. 343

ness?) told him when life had actually quitted the ca-
daver. This seems to me a very clear and sensible
explanation of a long- veiled practice. Moreover,
I read in Mr. K. R. Cama's translation of Prof.
Duncker's GeschicJite des Altertnuts, that in the
time of Agathias, the Persians carried their dead
outside the gates of a town and exposed them to
be eaten by dogs and birds ; regarding it as a
clear proof that the deceased had led an impure
life if the corpse were not directly consumed. What
more likely, then, than that the relatives showed
the corpse to the one or two dogs at the house, so
that by the time the procession should reach the
place of exposure, the pack would be there ready
to complete their work ? As for the theory that
the glance of a dog frightens away the Drukhs-
NaQU, it appears to be a mere hypothesis. In the
Secret Doctrine it is taught that the most lethal
current in the ether of space {Akasd) sets in from
the North. This is the current of terrestrial mag-
netism. Experience has also warned mesmeric
practitioners to make their subject sit with the back
to the North and the feet towards the South. The
Hindus lay their dead in the same direction.
Baron Reichenbach also discovered that his odylic
sensitives could not sleep East and West, but would
instinctively turn North and South, even when
their beds had been purposely placed in the trans-
verse way. In occult Science the North is the
habitat of the worst " elemental spirits " (a very
clumsy name for the occult forces of nature), and

344 THE SPIRIT OF THE

in Eliphas Levi's books {Dogj?ie et Ritjiel de la
Hajite Magie, and others) are given instructions to
guard against their irruption. If a corpse be tra-
versed by this boreal current, the latter takes up
certain psychically bad influences, which, if ab-
sorbed by the living who are sensitive to them, have
a very evil effect. The Drukhs-Na^u is this boreal
current, and contains in itself a number of varieties
of malignant influences. This, I am told, is the
Secret Doctrine.

In commencing, I reminded you that this subject of
the spirit of Zoroastrianism is limitless. In con-
sulting my authorities I have been perplexed to
choose from the abundance of material, rather than
troubled by any lack of it. There are a few more
facts that I should like to mention before closing.

Abul Pharaj, in the Book of Dynasties (p. 54),
states that Zarathusht taught the Persians the
manifestation of the Wisdom (the Lord's Anointed
Son, or Logos, the Persian " Honover.") This is
the living manifested word of Deific Wisdom. He
predicted that a Virgin should conceive immacul-
ately, and that at the birth of that future messenger
a six-pointed star would appear, and shine at noon-
day. In its centre would appear the figure of a
Virgin. This six-pointed star you see engraved
on the seal of the Theosophical Society. In the
Kabala the Virgin is the Astral Light or Akasa,
and the six-pointed star the emblem of the Macro-
cosm. The Logos, or Sosiosh, to be born, means
the secret knowledge or science which reveals the

ZOROASTRIAN kELIGION. 345

" Wisdom of God." Into the hand of the prophet
messenger Zarathusht were deUvered many gifts.
When filling the censer with fire from the sacred
altar, as the Mobed did in ancient days, the act
was symbolical of imparting to tJie w or s J uppers the
knowledge of divine truth. In the ' Gital Krishna
informs Arjuna that God is in the fire of the altar.
*' I am the Fire; I am the Victim." The Flamens,
or Etruscan priests, were so called because they
were supposed to be illuminated by the tongues of
Fire (Holy Ghost) and the Christians took the hint
(^Acts ii.) The scarlet robe of the Roman Catholic
cardinal symbolises the heavenly Fire. In an
ancient Irish MS. Zarathusht is called Airgiod-
Lamk, or he of the Golden Hand,* — the hand which
received and scattered celestial Fire (Ousley's
Oriental Collections, i., 303). He is also called
Mogh Nuadhat, the Magus of the New Ordinance,
or dispensation. Zarathusht was one of the first
reformers who taught to the people a portion of
that which he had learned at his initiation, viz., the
six periods, or Gdkambdrs, in the successive evolu-
tion of the world. The first is Alidyiizeram, that
in which the heavenly canopy was formed ; the
second Mid-yirshCin, in which the collected moisture
formed the steamy clouds from which the waters
were finally precipitated ; the third, Piti-shahim,

* I have a copy of an excellent chromolithograph, recently pub-
lislied at Bombay, representing Zoroaster as standing upon a double
star, his head encircled with starry rays, his hand holding a seven-
ipinted bamboo and fire coming from his hand.

346 THE SPIRIT OF THE

when the earths became consolidated out of primeval
cosmic atoms ; the fourth, lyaseram, in which earth
gave birth to vegetation ; the fifth, Midiyarim, when
the latter slowly evoluted,into animal life; the sixth,
Haniespiia-inidan, when the lower animals cul-
minated in man. The seventh period — to come
at the end of a certain cycle — is prefigured in
the promised coming of the Persian Messiah,
seated on a horse ; i.e. the sun of our solar system
will be extinguished and the " Pralaya," will begin.
In the Christian Apocalypse of St. John you will
find the Persian symbolical prophecy closely copied ;
and the Aryan Hindu awaits the coming of his
Kalki Avatar when the celestial White Horse will
come in the heavens, bestridden by Vishnu. The
horses of the sun figure in all other religions.

There exists among the Persian Parsis a volume
older than the present Zoroastrian writings. Its
title is Gjavidan Chrad, or Eternal Wisdom. It is
a work on the practical philosophy of Magic, with
natural explanations. Hyde mentions it in his
preface to the Religio Vetenun Fersannn. The
four Zoroastrian Ages are the four races of men —
the Black, the Russet, the Yellow, the White. The
four castes of Manu are alleged to have typified
this, and the Chinese show the same idea in their
four orders of priests clothed in black, red, yellow,
and white robes. St. John sees these same colours
in the symbolic horses of his Revelation. Speaking
of Zoroaster, whom he admits to have possessed
all sciences and philosophy then known to the

ZOROASTKIAN RELIGION, 347

world, Mr, Oliver gives an account of the cave
temple of which so m^uch is said in Zoroastrian
literature. "Zoroaster," he writes, "retired to a
ch'adar cave or grotto in the mountains of Bokhara
which he ornamented with a profusion of symbolical
and astronomical decorations, consecrating it to
Methr-Az. Here the sun was represented by
a splendid gem, in a conspicuous part of the
roof; and the four ages of the world were
represented by so many globes of gold, silver,
brass and iron." {History of Initiation^ p. 9.)

And now I ask you, as a final word, if the crisis
has not arrived when every man of you is called
upon, by all he holds sacred, to be up and doing.
Shall the voice of the Chaldean Fathers, which
whispers to you across the ages, be heard in vain ?
Shall the example of Zarathusht and Mathan be
forgotten ? Must the memory of your hero fore-
fathers be dishonoured ? Shall there never more
arise among you a Darab Dastur, to draw down the
celestial flame from the azure vault upon your
temple altar? Is the favour of Ahura-Mazda no
longer a boon precious enough to strive for and
deserve? The Hindu pilgrims to the temple-shrine
of Jotir Math at Badrinath, affirm that some, more
favoured than the rest, have sometimes seen far
up amid the snow and ice of Mount Dhavalagiri —
a Himalayan peak — the venerable figures of Ma-
hatmas — perhaps of Rishis — who keep their watch
and ward over the slumbering Aryan faith, and await
the hour of its resuscitation. So too — our travelling

348 SPIRIT OF THE ZOROASTRIAN REIIGION.

brother in Armenia writes — there is a cave up near
the crest of Allah-Dag, where at each setting of
the sun, appears at the cave's mouth a stately figure,
holding a book of records in his hand. The people
say that this is Mathan, last of the great Magian
priests, whose body died some sixteen centuries
ago. His anxious shade watches from thence the
fate of Zoroaster's faith. And shall he stand in
vain ? Is he to see that faith die out for want of
spiritual refreshment ? Ye sons of Sohrab and of
Rustam, rouse yourselves ! Awake before it be too
late ! The Hour is here : where are the MEN ?

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS

LESSONS/'^

The thoughtful student, in scanning the rehgious
history of the human race, has one fact continually
forced upon his notice, viz., that there is an invari-
able tendency to deify whomsoever shows himself
superior to the weakness of our common humanity.
Look where we will, we find the saint-like man
exalted into a divine personage and worshipped
as a god. Though perhaps misunderstood, re-
viled and even persecuted while living, the apothe-
osis is almost sure to come after death ; and the
victim of yesterday's mob, raised to the state of an
intercessor in heaven, is besought with prayers and
tears, and placatory penances, to mediate with God
for the pardon of human sin. This is a mean and
vile trait of human nature, — the proof of ignorance,
selfishness, brutal cowardice and superstitious
materialism. It shows the base instinct to put
down and destroy whatever or whoever makes men
feel their own imperfections ; with the alternative
of ignoring and denying these very imperfections

* A Lecture delivered at the Kandy Town Hall, Ceylon, nth
June, 1880.

350 THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS.

by turning into gods men who have merely spirit-
ualized their natures, so that it may be supposed
they were heavenly incarnations and not mortal
like other men.

This process of eitheinerization^ as it is called, or
the making of men into gods and gods into men,
sometimes, though more rarely, begins during the
life of a hero, but usually after death. The true
history of his life is gradually amplified and de-
corated with fanciful incidents, to fit it to the new
character posthumously accorded to him. Omens
and portents are now made to attend his
earthly avatar ; his precocity is described as super-
human ; as a babe or lisping child he silences the
wisest logicians by his divine knowledge ; miracles
he produces, as other boys do soap-bubbles ; the
terrible energies of nature are his playthings ; the
gods, angels and demons are his habitual attend-
ants ; the sun, moon, and all the starry host wheel
around his cradle in joyful measures, the earth
thrills with joy at having borne such a prodigy ;
and at his last hour of mortal life the whole uni-
verse shakes with conflicting emotions.

Why need I use the few minutes at my dis-
posal to marshal before you the various personages
of whom these fables have been written ? Let it
suffice to recall the interesting fact to your notice,
and invite you to compare the respective biogra-
phies of the Brahminical Krishna, the Persian
Zoroaster, the Egyptian Hermes, the Indian Gaut-
ama, and the canonical, especially the apocryphal,

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND FFS LESSONS. 351

Jesus. Taking Krishna or Zoroaster, as you please
as the most ancient, and coming down the chrono-
logical line of descent, you will find them all made
after the same pattern. The real personage is all
covered up and concealed under the embroidered
veils of the romancer and the enthusiastic historio-
grapher. What is surprising to me is that this
tendency to exaggeration and hyperbole is not
more commonly allowed for by those who in our
day attempt to discuss and to compare religions.
We are constantly and painfully reminded that the
prejudice of inimical critics, on the one hand, and
the furious bigotry of devotees, on the other, blind
men to fact and probability, and lead to gross in-
justice. Let me take as ^n example the mythical
biographies of Jesus. At the time when the Coun-
cil of Nice was convened for settling the quarrels of
certain bishops and for the purpose of examining
into the canonicity of the 300 more or less apocry-
phal gospels, that were being read in the Christian
churches as inspired writings, the history of the life
of Christ had reached the height of absurd myth.
We may see some specimens in the extant books
of the apocryphal New Testament ; but most of
them are now lost. What have been retained in
the present canon may doubtless be regarded as the
least objectionable. And yet, we must not hastily
adopt even this conclusion ; for, * you know that
Sabina, Bishop of Heraclea, himself speaking of
the Council of Nice, affirms that " except Constan-
tine and Sabinus, Bishop of Pamphilus, these

352 THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSoNS.

bishops were a set of illiterate, simple creatures
that understood nothing ; " which is as though he
had said they were a pack of fools. And Pappus,
in his Syiiodicon to that Council of Nice, lets us into
the secret that the canon was not decided by a
careful comparison of the several gospels before
them, but by a lottery. Having, he tells us, " pro-
^miscuously put all the books that were referred to
the Council for determination under a communion-
table in a church, they (the bishops) besought the
Lord that the inspired writings might get up on
the table, while the spurious writings remained un-
derneath, and it happened accordingly^ But letting
all this pass as possibly spurious history, and
looking only to what is contained in the
present canon, we see the same tendency to
compel all nature to attest the divinity of the
writer's hero. At the nativity a star leaves its orbit
and leads the Persian astrologers to the divine
babe, and angels come and converse with shepherds,
and a whole train of like celestial phenomena
occur at various stages of his earthly career; which
closes am.id earthquakes, a pall of darkness over the
whole scene, a supernatural war of the elements,
the opening of graves and walking about of their
tenants, and other appalling wonders. Now, if
the candid Buddhist concedes that the real history
of Gautama is embellished by like absurd exagger-
ations, and if we can find their duplicates in the
biographies of Zoroaster, Sankaracharya and other
real personages of antiquity, have we not the right

THE LTFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS. 353

to conclude that the true history of the Founder of
Christianity, if at this late day it were possible to
write it, would be very different from the narratives
that pass current ? We must not forget that Jeru-
salem was at that time a Roman, just as Ceylon is
now a British dependency, and that the silence of
contemporary Roman historians about any such
violent disturbances of the equilibrium of nature is
deeply significant

I have cited this example for the sole and simple
purpose of bringing home to the non-Buddhistic
portion of my audience the conviction that,
in considering the life of Sakya Muni and the
lessons it teaches, they must not make his followers
of to-day responsible for any extravagant exuber-
ance of past biographers. The doctrine of Buddha
and its effects are to be judged quite apart from
the man, just as the doctrine ascribed to Jesus and
its effects are to be considered quite irrespectively
of his personal history. And — as I trust to have
shown — the actual doings and sayings of every
founder of a faith or school of philosophy, must
be sought for under a heap of tinsel and rubbish
contributed by successive generations of followers.

Approaching the question of the hour in this
spirit of precaution, what do we find are the pro-
babilities respecting the life of Sakya Muni? Who
was he ? When and how did he live ?
What did he teach ? A most careful comparison
of authorities and analysis of evidence establishes,

I think, the following data :

z

354 THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS.

1. He was the son of a king.

2. He lived between six and seven centuries
before Christ.

3. He resigned his royal state and went to
live in the jungle, and among the lowest and
most unhappy classes, so as to learn the
secret of human pain and misery by per-
sonal experience ; tested every known aus-
terity of the Hindu ascetics and excelled
them all in his power of endurance ; sounded
every depth of woe in search of the means
to alleviate it ; and at last came out vic-
torious, and showed the world the way to
salvation.

4. What he taught may be summed up in a
few words, as the perfume of many roses
may be distilled into a few drops of attar.
Everything in the world of matter is unreal :
the only reality is the world of spirit. Eman-
cipate yourself from the tyranny of the
former ; strive to attain the latter. The
Rev. Samuel Beal, in his Cantena of Buddhist
Scriptures front the Chinese, puts it differ-
ently. '' The idea underlying the Buddhist
religious system is," he says, " simply this :
* All is vanity,' Earth is a show, and Heaven
is a vain reward." Primitive Buddhism
was engrossed, absorbed, by one thought — the
vanity of finite existence, the priceless value
of the one condition of Eternal Rest.

If I have the temerity to prefer my own defini-

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSON"^, 355

tion of the spirit of Buddha's doctrine, it is because
it appears to me all the misconceptions of it have
arisen from failure to understand his idea of what is
real and what unreal, what worth longing and
striving for, and what not. From this misconcep-
tion have arisen all the unfounded charges that
Buddhism is an " atheistical " — that is to say, a
grossly materialistic, nihilistic, negative, vice-
breeding religion. Buddhism denies the existence
of a personal God — true ; denies the immortality
of the soul,* — true ; holds out no promise of a
future, unbroken existence in heaven — true ; there-
fore— well, therefore, and notwithstanding all this,
its teaching is neither what may be properly
called atheistical, nihilistic, negative, nor provo-
cative to vice. I will try to make my meaning
plain, and the advancement of modern scientific
research helps me in this direction. Science
divides the universe for us into two elements —
matter and force ; accounting for every pheno-
menon by their combinations, and making both
eternal and obedient to eternal immutable law.
The speculations of men of science have carried
them to the outermost verge of the physical
universe. Behind them lie not only a thousand
brilliant triumphs by which a part of Nature's
secrets have been wrung from her, but also more
thousands of failures to fathom her deep mysteries,
They have proved thought material, since it is the
evolution of the gray tissue of the brain, and a
* The Astral Man— not the seventh principle in man.

356 THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS.

recent German experimentalist, Professor Dr. Jager,
claims to have proved that man's soul Is " a volatile
odoriferous principle, capable of solution In glycer-
ine." Psychogen is the name he gives to it, and his
experiments show that it is present not merely in
the body as a whole, but in every Individual cell, in
the ovum, and even in the ultimate elements of
protoplasm. I need hardly say to so intelligent an
audience as this that these highly interesting ex-
periments of Dr. Jiiger are corroborated by many
facts, both physiological and psychological, that
have been always noticed among all nations— facts
which are woven into popular proverbs, legends,
folk-lore, fables, mythologies and theologies, the
world over. Now if thought is matter and soul is
matter, then Buddha, in recognizing the imperma-
nence of sensual enjoyment or experience of any
kind, and the instability of every material form, the
human soul* included, uttered a profound and
scientific truth. And, since the very Idea of grati-
fication or suftering is inseparable from that of
material being — absolute SPIRIT alone being re-
garded by common consent as perfect, changeless,
and Eternal— therefore, in teaching the doctrine
that conquest of the material self, with all its lusts,
desires, loves, hopes, ambitions and hates, frees one
from pain, and leads to Nirvana, the state of Perfect
Rest, he preached the rest of an untlnged, untainted
existence in the Spirit. Though the soul be com-
posed of the finest conceivable substance, yet if
* The Astral Man ; not the seventh principle in man.

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS. 357

substance at all — as Dr. Jiiger seems able to prove,
and as ages of human intercourse, with the weird
phantoms of the shadow-world imply — it must in
time perish. What remains is that changeless part
of man which most philosophers call Spirit, and
Nirvana is its necessary condition of existence.
The only dispute between Buddhist authorities is
whether this Nirvanic existence is attended with
individual consciousness, or whether the individual
is merged into the whole, as the extinguished
flame is lost in the ocean of air. But there are
those who say that the flame has not been anni-
hilated by extinction. It has only passed
out of the visible world of matter into the invisible
world of spirit, where it still exists, and will ever
exist, as a bright reality. Such thinkers can under-
stand Buddha's doctrine, and, while agreeing with
him that the soul is not immortal, would spurn the
charge of materialistic nihilism if brought against
either that sublime teacher or against themselves.

The history of Sakya Muni's life is the strongest
bulwark of his religion. As long as the human
heart is capable of being touched by tales of heroic
self-sacrifice, accompanied by purity and celestial
benevolence of motive, it will cherish his memory.
Why go into the particulars of that noble
life ? You all remember that he was the son of the
king of Kapilavastu — a mighty sovereign whose
opulence enabled him to give the heir of his house
every luxury a voluptuous imagination could
desire — and that the future Buddha was not allowed

358 THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS.

even to know, much less to observe, the miseries of
ordinary existence. How beautifully Mr. Edwin
Arnold has depicted, in his *' Light of Asia," the
luxury and languor of that Indian court,

" Where love was gaoler and delights its bars."
We are told that

" The king commanded that within those walls

No mention should be made of death or age,
Sorrow or pain or sickness.

And every dawn the dying rose was pluck'd,
The dead leaves hid, all evil sights removed :

For said the king, ' If he shall pass his youth
Far from such things as move to wistfulness

And brooding on the empty eggs of thought,
The shadow of this fate, too vast for man,

May fade, bee-like, and I shall see him grow
To that great stature of fair sovereignty.

When he shall rule all lands — if he will tulc—
The king of kings and glory of his time."

You know how vain were all the precautions
taken by the father to prevent the fulfilment of the
prophecy that his beloved son would be the coming
Buddha. Though all suggestions of death were
banished from the royal palace, though the city
was bedecked with flowers and gay flags, and every
painful object removed from sight when the young
Prince Siddartha visited the city, yet the decrees of
destiny were not to be baffled : the " voices of the
spirits," the " wandering winds," and the Devas
whispered the truth of human sorrows into his
listening ear, and, when the appointed hour arrived,
the Suddha Devas threw the spell of slumber over
the household, steeped the sentinels in pro-

THE LIFE OF BUDDIIA AND ITS LESSONS. 359

found lethargy (as the angel did the gaolers
in Peter's prison), rolled back the triple gates
of bronze, strewed the red mohra flowers
thickly beneath his horse's feet to muffle every
sound, and he was free. Free? Yes, to resign every
earthly comfort, every sensuous enjoyment, the
sweets of royal power, the homage of a court, the
delights of domestic life ; gems, the glitter of gold :
rich stuffs, rich foods, soft beds ; the songs of
trained musicians, and of birds kept prisoners in
gay cages ; the murmur of perfumed waters plash-
ing in marble basins ; the delicious shade of trees
in gardens where art had contrived to make nature
even lovelier than herself He leaps from his
saddle when at a safe distance from the palace,
flings the jewelled rein to his faithful groom,
Channa, cuts off his flowing locks, gives his rich
costume to a hunter in exchange for his own,
plunges into the jungle, and is free !

" To tread its paths with patient, stainless feet,

Making its dusty bed, its loneliest wastes,
My dwelling, and its meanest things my mates :

Clad in no prouder garb than outcasts wear,
Fed with no meals save what the charitable

Give of their will, shelter'd by no more pomp
Than the dim cave lends or the jungle-bush.

This will I do because the woful cry
Of life and all flesh living cometh up

Into my ears, and all my soul is full
Of pity for the sickness of this world ;

Which I will heal, if healing may be found
By uttermost renouncing and strong strife."

Thus masterfully does Mr. Arnold depict the setin

36o THE LIFE OF BUDDHA A AD ITS LESSONS.

ment which provoked this great renunciator. The
testimony of thousands of millions who, during
the last twenty-five centuries, have professed the
Buddhist religion, proves that the secret of human
misery was at last solved by this divine self-
sacrifice, and the true path to Nirvana opened.

The joy that he brought to the hearts of others
Buddha first tasted himself. He found that the
pleasures of the eye, the ear, the taste, touch and
smell, are fleeting and deceptive ; that he who gives
value to them brings only disappointment and
bitter sorrow upon himself The social difference
between men, he found, was equally arbitrary and
illusory : caste bred hatred and selfishness ; riches
strife, envy and malice. So, in founding his faith,
he laid the bottom of its foundation-stones upon all
this worldly dirt, and its dome in the clear serenity
of the world of spirit. He who can mount to a
clear conception of Nirvana will find his thought
far away above the common joys and sorrows of
petty men. As to one who ascends to the top of
the Chimborazo, or the Himalayan crags, and
sees men on the earth's surface crawling to
and fro like ants, so small do bigots and
sectarians appear to him. The mountain climber
has under his feet the very clouds from whose sun-
painted shapes the poet has figured to himself the
golden streets and glittering domes of the materi-
alist heaven of a personal God. Below him are
all the various objects out of which the world's
pantheons have been manufactured; around, above,

THE LJFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS. 361

— immensity. And so also, far down the ascend-
ing plane of thought that leads from earth
towards the Infinite, the philosophic Buddhist
descries, at different plateaux, the heavens and
hells, the gods and demons, of the materialist
creed-builders.

What are the lessons to be derived from the Hfe
and teachings of this heroic prince of Kapilavastu ?
Lessons of gratitude and benevolence ; lessons of
tolerance for the clashing opinions of men who live,
move, and have their being, think and aspire, only
in a material world. Lessons of a common
tie of brotherhood among all men ; lessons of
manly self-reliance, of an equanimous breasting of
whatsoever of good or ill may happen. Lessons of
the meanness of the rewards, the pettiness of the
misfortunes, of a shifting world of illusions. Lessons
of the necessity for avoiding every species of evil
thought, word, and deed, of doing, speaking,
and thinking everything that is good ; and of
bringing the mind into subjection, so that these
may be accomplished without selfish motive or
vanity. Lessons of self-purification and com-
munion, by which the illusoriness of externals and
the value of internals are understood.

Well might St. Hilaire burst into the panegyric
that Buddha " is the perfect model of all the virtues
he preaches : his life has not a stain upon
it." Well might the sober critic, Max Miiller, pro-
nounce his moral code " one of the most perfect
which the world has ever known." No wonder

362 THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS.

that, in contemplating that gentle life, Mr. Edwin
Arnold should have found his personality "the
highest, gentlest, holiest, and most beneficent
in the history of thought," and been moved to write
his splendid verses. It is twenty-five hundred
years since humanity put forth such a "flower;" who
knows when such an one appeared before ?

Gautama Buddha Sakya Muni has ennobled the
whole human race. His fame is our common in-
heritance. His Law is the law of Justice, providing
for every good thought, word, and deed its fair
reward ; for every evil one its proper punishment
His Law is in harmony with the voices of nature,
and the evident equilibrium of the universe. It
yields nothing to importunities or threats, can be
neither coaxed nor bribed by offerings to abate or
alter one jot or tittle of its inexorable course. Am
I told that Buddhist laymen are leading lives the re-
verse of Baddistic ; that they display vanity in their
worship and ostentation in their alms-giving ; that
they are fostering sects as bitterly as Hindus ? So
much the worse for the laymen ; there is the ex-
ample of Buddha and his Law. Am I told that
Buddhist priests are ignorant, idle fosterers of super-
stitions grafted on their religion by foreign kings ?
So much the worse for the priests : the life of
their Divine Master shames them, and shows their
unworthiness to wear his yellow robe or carry
his beggar-bowl. There is the Law immutable,
menacing ; it will find out and punish them.

But what shall we say to those of another

THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS. 363

cast of character — the humble-minded, charitable,
tolerant, religiously aspiring hearts among the laity,
and the unselfish, pure, c.nd learned of the priests
who know the precepts and keep them ? The Law
will find them out also ; and when the book of
each life is written up and the balance struck, every
good thought or deed will be found entered in its
proper place. Not one blessing that ever followed
them from grateful lips throughout their earthly
pilgrimage will have been lost ; each will help to
ease their way as they move from stage to stage of
being

**Unto Nirvana where the Silence h'ves,"

FINIS.

GLOSSARY.

By particular request, the following interpretations of Eastern words, used
throughout the foregoing Lectures, are given. I should have thought that many
of them were already familiar enough to the ordinary reader to obviate the
necessity for their insertion here. But it seems not.

Abiil Pharaj. A Persian,
author of the " Book of Dynas-
ties."

Agastya. An ancient sage ol
Southern India, much revered
throughout tlie country.

Apii. Fire, and its personified
principle, in Hindu mythology.

Agnihotra. A mystic cere-
monial, performed by the Vedic
Brahmans, with the object of
developing the mystic fire latent
in Akasd.

Agnihotri. One who performs
the ceremony of Agnihotra.

Ahankaram. Personality;

egoism.

Ahriman. The Evil Principle
of the Universe.

Ahura Vairya. The funda-
mental Parsee prayer, or confes-
sion of faith.

Ahzirmazihi, or Ahnra Mazda.
The Good Principle of the Uni-
verse (see also Hormazd).

AJmruasters. An ancient
Persian word, meaning "spirit-
ual teachers."

Ah'giod Lamh (literally, he of
the golden hand). The name by
which Zoroaster is referred to in
an Irish MS.

Aitareya Brdhviana. A sacred

book ot the Brahmans, dealing
with their rituals.

Aiwydonhana. A waist-band
worn by Zoroastrians.

Akdsa. The subtle supersensu-
ous matter pervading all space.
In one aspect it is identical with
the ^ther of Science.

Alexandria, Neo-Platonists of.
See N'eo-Platonist'i.

Allah-Dag. A mountain in
Central Asia.

Aluf Khan. The Moham-
medan Chief who signally de-
feated the Parsis and disjicrsed
them from their home in Persia.

A jneshaspenfas. The first seven
angels.

Af/irita Bazar Patrika. A
Calcutta native journal.

Aniritsar. The sacred city of
the Sikhs, in the Punjab.

A nima. The power :; f psychics
of increasing their weight.

Arahats (literally, the worthy
ones). The initiated holy men of
the Buddhist and Jain faiths.

Ardai Viraf. The purest of
Magian priests at the Court of
King Ardeshir Babaganof Persia.

Ardai Viraf Naineh. A Per-
sian book containing an account
of Ardai Viraf.

\6b

GLOSSARY.

Ardeshan. According to Euty-
chius, the first priest of the
Sacred Fire, appointed by
Nimrod.

Ardeshir Bahagan. The first
prince of the Sassanian dynasty.

^r/?a/(literally "the worthy").
A Buddhist or Jain sage (see
also Arahais).

Arjiin. One of the five
brothers, called Pandavas, the
heroes of the celebrated epic
Mahahharat.

Aryan, Pertaining to the
Aryas, or ancient Brahmanical
invaders of India,

Aryan Occult Science. The
ancient Aryans appear to have
had a complete science of the
subjective side of nature, as well
as an esoteric philosophy based
upon it.

Aryaii Philosophy. The an-
cient Aryas not only evolved the
Sanskrit language — the most per-
fect known — but also developed
six major schools of Philosophy,
and many minor ones.

Aryas. The higher castes
among the Hindus.

Arya Samaj. A society
founded, ten years ago, by the
late Dayanand Saraswati, for
the restoration of the Vedic
doctrines and ceremonials.

Ajyavarla. Theancientname
of Northern India, where the
Brahmanical invaders first
settled.

Ashfa Vidya. The eight
branches of study.

Asiatic Occnliistn. {See Aryan
Occult Science. )

Asoha, King. A celebrated
conqueror, monarch of a large
portion of India, who is called
"the Constantine of Buddhism."
Temp, circa 250 B.C.

Asrama, or Asra/nam. The
hermitage of Indian recluses.

Atash Bchrdm. The Zoroas-
trian " fire-temple," or place of
worship.

Atharva Veda. One of the
four most ancient and revered
books of the Aryas. It is sup-
posed by some Western Orien-
talists to be mere '* theological
twaddle," but is in fact a most
valuable key to Esoteric phi-
losophy.

Atma. The spirit, the Aug ?
eides.

Attar. A perfume, otto of
roses.

Avatar. The incarnation of a
god, so called among the
Hindus.

Avesta. The sacred books of
the Zoroastrians.

Babu. A title or prefix of
honour current in Bengal ; the
equivalent of "Master," Mon-
sieur^ Iderr, etc.

Bactric Worship. Nature wor-
ship practised in Central Asia.

Badrinath. A Hindu god.

Bairagee. A member of a cer-
tain order of religious mendicants
in India.

Baksheesh. A gratuUy or alms ;
sometimes a bribe.

Bamboo. A kind of Indian
cane.

Bares ma Twigs ^ or Rods.
Parsi divining rods.

Behedin. A layman, one not a
hereditary priest.

Belor Tagh. A mountain in
Central India.

Benares. The most renowned
and sacred city of India, situ-
ate on the banks of the river
Ganges. It contains a great
number of splendid ancient
temples and palaces.

Berosus. A Chaldean Priest.

Bharat, Bharata. A name for
India.

GLOSSARY.

367

Bhuia ddk (literally ' ' Demon's
Post "). The equivalent o( what
we call a " Spiiitual Medium."

Bokhara. An important city
in Tartary.

Borahs. A small Moham-
medan sect, a sub-section of the
Shiahs, well-known for their com-
mercial shrewdness.

Bo-tree. The Indian banyan
tree {Fiais Religiosa). 'I'he his-
torical tree under which Buddha
attained spiritual knowledge.

Brahma. The Hindu Deity
which personifies the active
cosmic evolutionary energy.

Brahmaloka. The highest
sphere of existence where forms
obtain.

Brahman, or Brahmin. The
highest caste in India. (The
former spelling more nearly re-
presents the sound of the word
in Sanskrit.)

Brahminical Customs. Social
and religious observances pre-
scribed for the caste of Brahmans.

Brahmo Samaj. A Hindu
Theistic Society, founded about
fifty years since by the late Raja
Ram Mohun Roy ; whose ob-
ject was to restore the pristine
purity of the Hindu religion.

Bramachari Bazoa. A Brah-
man ascetic of Central India.

Buddha. The founder of
Buddhism. He was a royal
prince, by name Siddharlha,
son of Suddhorana, king of
the Sakyas, an Aryan tribe.

Buddhaship. The state ^of
being a Buddha, or spiritually
enlightened.

Biiddhi. The spiritual ego.
Buddhism. The moral philo-
sophy taught by Buddha.

Buddhist. One who accepts
the moral philosophy of Buddha.
Btingalozu. The com mon name
in India for a dwelling-house.

Cambodia. One of the coun-
tries forming the Eastern
Peninsula, between China and
India.

Cambyses. A Median King.

Cashmiris. Inhabitants of
Cashmere.

Castes. Social divisions, or
groups, among the Hindus.
The four principal or primitive
ones are those of priests,
soldiers (including nobility),
merchants and labourers.

Chakras. Centres. In the
body, centres of psychic energy.

Channa. The servant of
Buddha, who brought back to
the king his father the news of
his great Renunciation.

Chatusashthikala Nirnaya. A
treatise descriptive of the sixty-
four arts known in ancient
India.

Cheia. A pupil of an adept in
Occultism.

Chi?nborazo. A volcano iu
South America.

Chinvat or Chinvad bridge of
souls. The bridge which leads
souls from this to the other
world {Arabic).

Chittaui. The mind.

Cojijucius. A Chinese philo-
sopher.

Crore. Ten millions.
Cutch. A province of West-
ern India.

'' Dabistan,'' or School cf Man-
ners. A Persian work of the
seventeenth century by Mohsan
Fani. (An English translation is
procurable.)

Darab. A priest, one of the
most distinguished of the Indian
Piirsis (see Dastur Larab).

Daraga. A river in ancient
Persia.

Darius. A king of ancient
Persia.

i68

GZ0SSy1/^V.

Dtviiis llyslaspcs. A Persian
monarch, supposed to be the
contemporary of Zoroaster.

Dastiir. A high priest of the
Zoroastrians.

Dasttir Darab. One of the
most distinguished of the Indian
Parsi priests (see Darab).

Derbent. A province in the
Caucasian Viceroyalty of Russia.
Dervishes of Arabia. A sect of
Mohammedan ascetics and mys-
tics,

Desatir. An ancient mystical
scripture of the Parsi religion.

DevacJian (pronounced Deva-
khdn). The conscious after-life.
Devas. Gods.

Devis. From the Sanskrit word
Div, to shine : the Bright Ones
— Elemental Spirits, Fairies,
Sylphs, Dryads, &c.

Dhmnvia. Religious law
{Pali).

Dharana. Holding a subject
in mind steadfastly.

Dhavalagiri, Mount. One of
the important peaks of the Hima-
layas.

Dhydna, or Dhyan. Abstract
contemplation.

Driikhs-Naai. The personifi-
cation in Zoroastrianism of a ma-
lignant current of boreal mag-
netism.

Durbar. The state reception or
" drawing-room " of an Indian
Prince or magnate.

Dzvaitas. Dualists; those who
believe in the distinctness of the
human spirit and the universal
spirit.

Eutychius. A priest and archi-
mandrite at Constantinople, who
wrote on Zoroastrianism.

Fargard. A ch apter of a book .
Fetish. An object of supersti-
tious adoration ; as, for instance,

an ugly image, or stock, among
ignorant African tribes.

Framji Gowasji Hall. One of
the largest public buildings in
Bombay.

Franasti. Thedemon of death,
mentioned in the Vemiidad, a
sacred book of the Parsis.

Gdharnhdrs. The five days at
the end of the Parsi year, also
other days of feasting in different
seasons.

Ganesha. The Hindu god of
learning.

Ganges. The most sacred river
of India.

Gathas. Portions of the Budd-
hist Scriptures.

Gautama Buddha. One of the
names by which the Founder of
Buddhism is known.
Ghee. Clarified butter.
" Gita,^^ ox Bhagavadgit-a. An
episode of the Mahabharata^ a
sacred book of the Brahmans.

Gjaviddn Chrad (literally,
eternal wisdom). Name of a
book of that description.

Gobi, Dese?t of. The same as
Shatno, q.v.

Gopis. Milk maids, with whom
the god Krishna is represented
in the Hindu mythology to have
been in love. The fable is in-
terpreted to mean the correla-
tion of force (spirit) and matter.
Gossain. A Vaishnava priest.
Goutaj?ia, or Gautama, (See
Gaiitama Buddha.)

Gupha. A cave or subter-
ranean resort of a Yogi, for medi-
tation and psychic development.
Gurti. Spiritual preceptor.
Guru-asters (vide Zu7'u-asters).
Gustaspa. Supposed to be
identical with Darius Hystaspes.

Hafiz. The greatest among
the mystical poets of Persia.

GLOSSARY.

369

Haines pi la - in Ida n . A m on g
the Parsis, the period during
which the lower animals began to
evolve into men.

Haonia. Among the Parsis, a
god, and also a plant.

Hara, Mount, Where Mo-
hammed is said to have received
the Koran.

Hari. A name of Krishna or
Vishnu.

Harischandra. An Indian
king mentioned in the Rama-
yana.

Heplaktis. A seven-rayed god
of the Pythagoreans and Kaba-
lists ; a concrete symbolization
of the solar spcclriiin.

Hermes. The greatest of the
Egyptian teachers of the Eso-
teric doctrine.

Himalayas. The Himala-
yan Mountains, which sep-
arate India from Tibet, are
not only the highest in the
world, but also most connected
with the earliest histories of our
race. Exoterically, their highest
peaks were represented as in
connection with the heavens of
Aryan mythology.

Hi?navdt. Another name for
the Himalayas.

Hindu. Black ; a name said
to have been contemptuously
applied to the natives of India I
by their Mohammedan con- [
querors. j

Hinduism. Used here in the ,
sense of any orthodox school of
Hindu religion.

Hindu I hilosopJiy. There are
six principal ancient schools of
philosophy in India, with num-
erous derived ones. For par-
ticulars, see Encylopcedia Bri-
fannica, or the Morks of Pro-
fessor Max Midler, Monier
Williams and others.

Hindustan, The country [siati)

2 A

of the Hindus ; the Indian pen-
insula.

Hoinute. " Good thoughts ; "
one of the three fundamental
Zoroastrian commandments.

^^ Honover." The fundamental
Zoroastrian Confession of Faith
and Prayer.

Hormazd. The Eternal Prin-
ciple of Good (see also Ahiir-
uiazda).

Hickhate. ** Good words."

Iddhizoiddhindna. The science
of spiritual development.

IndianHeuip. An intoxicating
smoking mixture prepared from
the stalk of Canabis Indiea.

Indian Jugglers. In India these
form a separate and one of the
lowest castes. Some of their
feats are astounding for dexterity,
others inexplicable, except upon
the theory of some knowledge
of the elements of Occult Science.

Indu Prakash. A Bombay
native journal.

Indus. The principal river in
the Punjab.

Iran. Persia.

Iranian. Persian. [faith.

Islam. The Mohammedan

lyaseram. The period of the
evolution of the vegetable king-
dom on earth, so called among
Parsis.

Jaimini. Expounder of the
whole system of Brahmanical
rituals.

Jain. A religioussectin India,
closely related to the Buddhists.
They affu-m that Buddha wasa
pupil of one of their sages.

Jiva. Life ; a living being.

Jivan-Mukta. The realization
during life of the complete union
of one's spirit (Sanskrit: atma)
with the Universal Spirit.

Ji7'-Atm.a. The human spirit.

Jotir Math (literally, the tern-

370

GLOSSARY.

pie of light). A celebrated shrine
in ihe Himalayas.
Jiuigle. An Indian forest.

Kdbah. The black cubical
stone of Mohammed at Mecca.

Kahalists. Jewish doctors or
adepts, who interpret the hidden
meaning of the Scriptures with
the help of the symbolical Ka-
bala (unwritten tradition), and
explain the real, or non -symboli-
cal one by these means. The
Tanaim (B.C. 3 cent.) were the
first Jewish Kabalists so far as
recorded. But the Jewish Ka-
bala was derived from the much
earlier and more perfect Chal-
dean one. Both contain, under
puzzling symbols, the Esoteric
doctrine recently revived by the
Theosophical Society.

Kabciric. Pertaining to the
mystery gods, symbolizing the
initiations among the Samothra-
cians, Assyrians, (S:c.

Kabirim. The name given to
the students of Kabala in the
secret lodges of the Pharisees.

Kaianian. The second great
royal dynasty of ancient Persia.

KalaPani. Black waters; the
sea. Brahmans are forbidden by
their religion to cross the ocean.

Kalki Avatar. The Messiah of
the Hindus ; the last incarnation
o^ Vishnu, to appear at the end
of the present cycle.

Kajuarnpa. The principle of
will in man.

Kanada. The Founder of the
(Indian) system of Atomic Philo-
sophy, Vaisesikha, similar to the
Heraclitan Philosophy of Greece.

Kapila. The founder of one of
the six principal systems of In-
dian philosophy, viz., the San-
khya.

Kapilavastu^ Prince of, Gau-
tama Buddha.

Karma. The law of ethical
causation : "whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also
reap."

Khabardincs. A tribe of
Caucasians.

KJwrasan, Mountains of. In
Persia.

Khordah - Avesta (literally,
"the small Avesta"). One of the
Sacred Books of the Parsis.

Kilauea. An enormous vol-
cano in the Hawaian Islands.

Koran. The Mohammedan
book of faith, said to have been
dictated to Mahommed by the
angel Gabriel.

Krishna. A Hindu god, per-
sonifying the spirit.

Ktirdistan. The country of the
Kurds.

Kiii-ds. Warlike tribesof East-
ern Turkey and Persia ; nomin-
ally, Mohammedans of the sect
of Omar, but holding to rites
and doctrines almost entirely
Magian. Some tribes practise
mysterious nocturnal rites of
lunar worship, and in each tribe
is at least one old man, or "holy
being," who is said to know the
past and to read the future.

Kiisa. A kind of Indian grass
used in religious ceremonies.

Kusti. The sacred thread worn
by the Parsis.

Laghimd. The psychic power
of lessening the weight of the
body at will.

Lakh, or lac. One hundred
thousand.

Laniaists of Tibet. The Budd-
hists of Tibet.

Lamas. Buddhist monks of
Tibet.

Laukiha. Psycho-physiologi-
cal powers developed by the use
of drugs and other physiological
means.

GLOSSARY.

371

Lirigasarira. The double or
astral body.

Lokothra. Psycliic powers ac-
companying spiritual develop-
ment.

LotaJi. A brass gol)let.

Lux?/ian Sen. The last Hindu
king of Bengal.

Mag. A word used by the pro-
])het JereiTjjjah to designate a
Babylonian Initiate.

Maghistom . Once the title of
Zoroaster's highest disciple,
synonym of wisdom.

Magi. Fire - worshippers ;
really the great magicians or
wisdom-philosophers of old.

Magian. Pertaining to the
Magi or Adepts of ancient India.

Magianism. ' ' Fi re- worship ; "
really wisdom-religion.

Magus. A sage, so-called in
ancient Persia.

Maharajah. The great king ;
also a title of honour.

Alahatma (literally, " a great
soul "). An adept in Occultism.

Mahimnastava, A hymn of
praise.

Mahojnet, or Mohammed. The
founder of Islam.

Manas. The mind, the person-
ality, the intellect.

Alandickyo Upanishad. One of
the ten principal Upanishads^ or
prose supplements of the metrical
Vedas, the most sacred book of
the Brahmans.

Mane/ho, dynasties of. His-
tory of Egyptian kings according
to Manetho, high priest of
Ileliopolis.

Mantra. Incantation.

Manu. The great Hindu law-
giver (see Mcmi).

Marichi. One of the seven
great sages of India.

Mathatn. Temple.

Mdya. Illusion which pro-

duces the diverse manifestations
of the one Reality.

Maya Sabha. The palace of
the Pandavas, built by Maya.

Mayaviriipa. The " Double,"
*' doppelganger ' — " perisprit."

Alazdiaznian. Zoroastrian ;
literally, worshipping God.

Medean Magi. Tlie adepts of
Occult Science among the anci-
ent Medes. They were ac-
quainted with the secret doctrine
taught in the Kabala.

Media. Greek name for a part
of Persia.

Me7i2i. The great Indian legis-
lator ; the alleged author of the
national code of laws (see Manu).

IMidiyariin. The period dur-
ing which animal life was evol-
ved ; so-called in Zoroastrianism.

Mid])iizcram. In the sacred
books of the Parsis a period
of evolution, during which the
heavenly canopy is said to have
been formed.

Mid-yirshan. In the Parsi
religion the period of evolution
during which clouds were formed.

Mobed. TheZoroastrian priest.

Mog. A Persian word, from
which Magus, a true priest, is
derived.

Mogbed. A high priest of the
Parsis, or fire-worshippers.

Mogh Nnadhat. A name for
Zoroaster in an Irish MS.

Mohsan Fani. T h e a u t h or of a
Persian work called "Dabistan,"
written about two centuries
ago.

A/oksha. Emancipation from
conditioned existence.

Moslem. Poetical abbreviated
form of Mussulman ; a follower
of Mohammed.

Muktdima (literally, a liberated
spirit). Theindivicfualityinman,
when it has escaped from the
bonds of illusion,

372

GLOSSARY.

Mitld'i. Salvation, z'.^., release
from conditioned existence.
Mussulman. (See Moslem.)

Narada. A great Indian sage.

Natitch. An Indian dance, per-
formed by professional female
dancers.

Nazar, or Nazir. Set apart,
separated.

Nazar s. A very ancient sect of
adepts, existing ages before
Christ.

Nazaret. Assyrian Greek
name for Zoroaster.

Neilrherries. or Nil^iris. The
" Blue INIountains." A range of
hills in the INIadras Presidency
with which many traditions of
ancient sages and wonder-workers
are connected.

Neo-Platonists of Alexandria.
Followers of a school of philo-
sophy founded by Ammonius
Saccas, which was highly altruis-
tic and catholic. It recognized
the existence of some portion of
divine or spiritual truth in every
form of religion, and left a deep
impress upon early Christianity.

Niraug. The liquid with which
the Parsis wash their faces every
morning.

Nirvana. Beatitude, vioksha
{q.v.). The state of abstract,
spiritual existence.

Nii~i'anic. Pertaining to Nir-
vana, the Buddhist name for the
final beatitude.

Omar. The-second Khali fell of
the Mohammedans.

Ormazd- Yacht. A part of the
Khordeh-Avesia ; a prayer.

Osetya. A province in the
Caucasian Viceroyalty of Russia.

Osiris. The Egyptian sun -god.

Padmdsan. A posture practised
by some Indian mystics. It
consists in sitting, with the legs

crossed one over the other, and
tl]e body straight.

Pahlavi. An ancient language
of the Zoroastrians.

Pali. The language in which
the principal scriptures of the
Buddhists are written.

Palingenesis. Thebeginningof
the period of Cosmic activity ;
also re-birth.

Pandit. A learned Brahman.

Pdnini. The greatest of San-
skrit grammarians.

Parabrahvia. The supreme
principle in Nature.

Parasnatha. One of the great
teachers of the Jain sects.

Parsiism. The religion of the
Parsis, Zoroastrianism.

Parsis. Followers of the
ancient Persian faith ; fire-wor-
shippers.

Parvad. In Hindu mythology
the goddess represeniing Cosmic
Energy.

Patanjali. The author of
Yoga Philosophy.

Pice. A small Indian copper
coin, worth a little over an
English farthing.

Piti-shahim. According to the
Parsis, the period during which
the earth became consolidated
out of primeval cosmic atoms.

Prakriti. Nature, Cosmic
matter.

Pralaya. Theperiod of Cosmic
rest.

Prarthana SamaJ. A Theistic
Society of Bombay.

Prc-Iranian. Anterior to the
Iranians or Persians.

Piicca. Ripe, permanent. A
pucca house is one built of good
bricks and mortar, or other per»
manent material.

Puggri. A turban.

Pundit. A Brahman learned in
Sanskrit.

Ptoijah. The northernmost

GLOSSARY.

373

province of British India, and in-
habited by the most \varhl<e races.

fjiranas (literally, the old
writings). A collection of Brah-
manical writings, mostly of a
mythical character, the least
authoritative of all.

Purdahs. Screens or curtains
hanging before the entrance to
the women's apartments.

Pttrushas'pa. The father of
Zoroaster, according to the
native traditions.

Radha. The queen among the
Gopis, who are said to have
been in love with Krishna.

Rajagriha. An ancient city in
Behar, where Buddha preached.

Rajah, King ; also a title of
nobility.

Rama. The celebrated King of
ancient India, the hero of the
great epic, named Ramayan.

Ramayana. A magnificent
Indian epic poem.

Ravana. King of Ceylon, and
slain by Rama.

Rislii (literally, a revealer). A
holy sage.

Rupee. An Indian silver coin,
equivalent to about is. 8d. of
English money.

Riistani. A hero of the ancient
Parsis, immortalised by Firdusi
in the Shdh-Ndjiieh.

Ryot. A peasant cultivator, or
tiller of the soil.

Sahaoih. Victory {HebreTo).

Sa/'eans. Worshippers of the
heavenly bodies.

Sabha. A Society.

Sabian, or Planetary Religion.
The worship of the heavenly
bodies.

Sad-der. Literally, a hundred
doors.

Sadhxi. A holy man.

Sahcysradalci'ii, One of the six

centres of psychic energy in the
human body.

Sakya Mitni. The Holy
Teacher of the Aryan tribe of
the Sakyas. One of the appella-
tions of Gautama Buddha.

Samadki. Ecstatic trance.

Saviaj. A Society.

Sa?)iajist. A member of the
Arya Samaj.

Saviothracian. Pertaining to
Samothrace.

Sanjdn. The place where the
fugitive Persians, persecuted by
Omar, found shelter in India.

Sankara Acharya, ox Sankara-
charya. The author of the Ved-
anta School of Philosophy, that
which denies the personality of the
Divine Principle, and affirms its
unity with the spirit of man.

Sanskrit (literally, \k\Q polished
dialect). The classical language
of the ancient Aryans ; the most
copious, noble and scientifically
constructed language in the
world. Its literary treasures are
incalculably precious.

Sanyasis, A Sansla-it word,
meaning a class of Hindu ascetics
whose minds are steadfastly fixed
upon the Supreme Truth.

Sastras. The sacred writings of
the Hindus.

Sec an der. Alexander the
Great.

Sera}}iptir. A city in Bengal on
the. banks of the Ganges.

Serosliizad. An angel in the
Zoroastrian hierarchy supposed
to correspond to Gabriel.

Shadachakranis. The six cen-
tres of force in the human
body.

Shauio, desert of. In Tibet.

Shi karri. A hunter.

ShriniadBhagavata. The prin-
cipal religious book of the
Vaishnava.

Siddha. One who has obtained

374

GLOSSARY.

psychic powers by proficiency in
the Occult vScience.

Siddhis. Extraordinary powers
obtained by spiritual develop-
ment.

Sikh War. The war for the con-
quest of the Kingdom of Runjit
Singh, the powerful monarch of
the Sikhs, popularly styled "The
Lion of the Punjab." The Koh-
i-noor diamond belonged to him.

Simla. A Sanatorium and hill-
station in the foot-hills of the
Himalayas ; the official summer
residence of the Viceroy of
India.

Sita. The wife of Rama in
Hindu Mythology, and the per-
sonification of Cosmic Matter.
As Rama personifies Spirit, their
loving relationship typifies the
correlation of Force and Matter.

Siva. One of the Hindu gods ;
with Brahma and Vishnu he
forms the Tritmcrti, or Trinity.

Sivaic Lingam. The* phallic
representation of the Hindu god,
Siva.

Sivaite. A worshipper of Siva.

Skandha. The impermanent
elements which constitute a man.

Slokas. vStanzas.

Sohrab. Son of Rustam, the
great Persian hero (see Rtis-
tavi).

Solar or Fire Worship. The
religion of the Parsis, popularly
so-called.

Soma. A mystic drink, men-
tioned in the Vedas.

Soorb Ovanness. A monastery
in Armenia.

Sosiosh. The coming Messiah
of the Zoroastrians.

Sthulasarira, or SthitlSharij-a.
The gross physical body.

Stiddha Devas. The highest or
purest gods.

Siidra. The lowest caste among
the Hindus,

Stijis. A practically Pantheistic
sect of the jNIohammedans, be-
lieving in the ultimate " one-
ness " with God.

Suksh?na Sharira. The subtile
body ; the double.

Sutras. Aphorisms.

Talisj?ian. A charm.

Talmud. Jewish commentaries
on the Bible.

Talmudists. Students of the
Talmud, or Rabbinical com-
mentaries on the Jewish Scrip-
tures.

Tamasha. Show, display.

Tantrika. Worshippers of the
Indian goddess Sakti, who typi-
fies Force.

Telugu. Alanguage spoken in
Southern India.

Teocalis. Holy enclosures of
the Arizona Indians.

Theodidaktoi of Greece. The
God-taught philosophers ; a
school which sought a know-
ledge of divine things by the
self-development of the latent
spiritual faculties.

Thian Shan mountains. In
Central Asia.

Tibet, mystics of. A class of
adepts of Esoteric Science among
the highest grade of Buddhist
ascetics. They are identical
with the Hindu Mahatmas.

Tiflis. The capital of Georgia.

Travancore. A province in
Southern India.

Tripitikas. The sacred books
of the Buddhists.

Tukaram. A religious poet
who flourished in the Bombay
Presidency, and attained great
popularity.

Turban. A cloth wrapped
about the head as a covering, in-
stead of a hat or cap.

Tiiticorin. The most Southern
Indian sea-port.

GLOSSARY,

375

Ushidannna. The mountain
on which Zoroaster is said to
have obtained his sacred Scrip-
tures.

Vach. The Logos, the mystic
word.

Vaishnava. Worshippers of
Vishnu.

Vasishta. Agreat Indian sage.

Vatsavana, A sage of ancient
India.

Vedaiitists, Followers of the
Vedanta, a system of Indian
ideahstic philosophy.

Vedas. The most authoritative
of the Hindu Scriptures.

Veda Vyasa. The celebrated
Rishiwho collected and arranged
the Vedas in their present form.

Vedic. Pertaining to the Veda,
or four oldest sacred books of
the Aryans, viz., Rig, Yajur,
Sama, and Atharva. They are
considered as having been di-
rectly revealed to the Rishis, or
Aryan sages, by Brahma.

Vendidad. One of the Zoroas-
trian sacred books.

Vihara. A Buddhist monas-
tery.

Vishnu. The second member
of the Hindu Trinity — the prin-
ciple of preservation.

Visishtadvaitis. An Indian re-
ligious sect who believe in salva-
tion by grace.

Vistdsp. A Bactrian King.
Vomer. The nasal cavity.
Vurushte. ' ' Good deeds ;" the
third great commandment of
Zoroaster.

Yapia. A sacred Zoroastrian
Book.

Yasht. A part of the Parsi

Prayer - book — the Khordeh
Avesta. There are several of
them.

YathCi aim Yahy6. The funda-
mental Zoroastrian prayer and
confession of faith.

Yazata. The angels inferior to
the Amshaspanos.

Yazaias. The personified good
principles of Nature.

Yoga. The science and art of
spiritual development.

Yoga Sulras. The parts of the
Yoga Philosophy.

Yoga Vidya. The science of
Yoga ; the practical method of
uniting one's own spirit with the
Universal Spirit or Principle.

Yogi. Amystic who is develop-
ing himself spiritually according
to the system laid down in
Patanjali's Yoga Philosophy.

Yozdathraigur. The same as
Magus, an adept of ancient
Persia.

ZaratiisJii, or ZaratJmstra. A
Persian form of the name Zoro-
aster.

Zend. The sacred language of
ancient Persia.

Zend Avesta. Thesacred Scrip-
ture of the Parsis, or fire-wor-
shippers.

''Zera-Lshtar." The title of the
Chaldean or Magian priests.

Zoroaster. The Prophet of the
Parsis.

Zoroastrian. Pertaining to the
religion of Zoroaster.

Zoroastrianism. The religion
of the Parsis, commonly called
Fire-worshippers.

Ziirii-aste> s. The prophets of
the Parsis.

INDEX.

Absolute Truth, 58

Abul Pharaj, his Book of Dynas-
ties, quoted, 344

Adepts, 139, 163, 212

Aeronautics, perfection of the
Aryans in, 265

Agni, fire of, T28

Agnihotra, the, 128, 157

Ahankaram, 95

Akasa, the, 100, loi, 209, 295

Alexandria, Neo-platonists and
Theurgists of, 55

Amoretti, investigations by, 213

Amrita Bazar Pairika, the fear-
less champion of Indian in-
terests, 189

Apparitions, 89, 122

Apollonius of Tyana, on the
occult properties of gems, 214

Arabian Nights, the, 245

Arnold, Edwin, his Light of
Asia, quoted, 35S, 359, 362,

Aryan philosophy, xiii., 74, 129,

151, 162, 168, 171
Aryan wisdom, 71, 123
Arya Samaj, x., 54, 175, 271
Aryavarta, 55, 67, 71, 80, 127,

165, 170, 171, 267
"Ashta Vidya," 266
Asoka, King, edicts of, 112
Asramas, private passages to, 98
Astral self, 140
Atharva Veda, 156
Atheism, 272
Atma, 59, '^'S>, 93, 94, 95, 105,

I33> 273
Aura, the, 156, 313, 314

Bach, the composer, 231

' Bagehot, Walter, on the ancients

and "progress," 292
Bain, Professor, 100, 131
Bairagee, dirty, 114
Beal, Rev. Samuel, his Catena

of Buddhist Scriptures, quoted ,

354.

Berzelius, theory of, 295

Bible, the, 325

Biology, 285

]>lack Art, the, 321

Blavatsky, Madame, psychic
phenomena produced by, -^t^',
355 385 43 ; her J sis Unveiled^
46, 48, 54, 57; becomes an
American citizen, 57; quoted,
59 : munificence of, 120 ; the
author's first meeting witli,
121, 122, 159, 190-195, 227.
229, 233, 240, 241, 245, 297,

309> 319, 341
Boeckh, 260

Boehmen, Jacob, 73

Bombay, addresses delivered at,

49

Bombay, approach to, 125

Bombay, youth of, 75

Bradlaugh, Mr., 79

Brahmaloka, 118

Brahminical customs, 156-157

Brahmo Samaj, 54, 271

Bramachari Bawa, 265

Brugsch Bey, on the origin of
the old Egyptians, 261

Buchanan, Professor, his discov-
ery of the psychometer, 209,
249

Buddha, Lord, his answer to the
Kalama people, 40; debate
between and jiis projected

78

INDEX.

"Double," 96; recumbent
image of, 155 ; his retirement
to desert places, 206 ; his life
and its lessons, 349-363

Buddhi, '^%^ 94, 95

Budd/iisl Catechism, 106

Buddhist, the, 58

Bunsen, 260

Burnouf, 258

Cahagnet, the French meta-
physician, his tribute to the
Theosophical Society, 18S ;
210, 255

Calcutta, first visit to, 119

Calhoun, Major, on the survival
of the Fire- Cult among the
Indian tribes of Arizona, 319

Cama, K. R., the eminent Parsi
scholar, 70, 343

Camomile plant, the, 150

Carpenter, Professor W. B., 242

Caste, 74-75

Ceylon, 213, 262

Ceylon, Branch Society at, 51

Charms and spells, 328

" Chatusashthikala Nirnaya,"
263

Chemistry, limitations of, 295

Chela, 122

Chinvat Bridge of Souls, 144,

339

Chittam, 95

Chittenden, a village in Ver-
mont, the scene of the Eddy
]:)henomena, 237, 241

Christadelphians, the, 177

Christianity, dogmatic fabric of,
17-19

Christianity, in America, 78

Chubb lock of the Universe, 201

Cicero, house of, 208

Civilisation, measure and marks
of, 293-294

Clairvoyance, 144, 213, 250

Communist refugees, conspir-
acies of, 57

Comparative philology, 266,
274

Compton, Mrs., case of, 139

Comte, 115

Confucius, 74, 112, 168

Conway, Mr. Moncure D., saying
of, 36

Cook, Mr. Joseph, unmanly
conduct of, 112, 338

Cosmogony, Hebrew, 289

Cox, Serjeant, his phrase of ^
" Psycliic Force," 220

Crookes, Mr. William, discover-
ies of, 203, 211; his Researches
in the Phenomena ofSpirit7ial-
ism, 219, 220, 224, 225, 227 ;
a member of the Theosophical
Society, 255

Crystal-reading, 207, 210, 212-
213, 252

D'abistAN, or School of Man-
ners, 84, 178, 179; one of the
most valuable of books for the
thoughtful Parsi, 339

Dalhousie, Lord, Governor-
General of India, 150

Darmesteter, Dr., his Introduc-
tion to the Vendidad, quoted,
312, 327; 336

Darwin, his theory of evolution,
250

P)astur Darab, 318

Davis, Andrew Jackson, 63, 73,
144

Defense iir, Le, Parisian organ
of the Ultramontane party, its
friendly attitude towards the
Theosophical Society, 42

Demoniac agency, 244

Denton, Professor, his Sozil of
Ihings, 208

Dervishes, 323

Desatir, the, 145, 304

Desmousseaux, Chevalier, series
of books by, 243

Devachan, 89

Devils, 321

Dharana, 139, 148

Dhyana, fourth stage of, 107,
139, 141, 148

Dickens, Charles, his Jack
Btmsby, 198

INDEX,

179

Disestablishment, 79
Divining-rods, 325, 329
Dondoukoff Korsakoff', Prince,
Viceroy of the Caucasus,

309
Dosabhoy Framjee, his work on

The Par sees, quoted, 310, 342
"Double," the, 92, 95, 96, 100,

loi, 123, 135, 152, 254, 295
Draper, Professor, 79, his Con-
Jiict between Religion and

Science, 288
Dryden, quoted, 170
Dualists, their belief regarding

the soul, 87, 102, T04
Duncker, Prof, his Geschichte des

AlterthiDHs, 343
Dupotet, Baron, 209, 255
Dwaitas, the, 114

Eastern philosophy, 68
Ecce Homo, 18
Ecstatics, 212, 214
Eddy, Horatio, 238
Eddy, William, the famous
medium, 122, 139, 232, 236-
242
Edinburgh, 41

Edison, discoveries of, 203 ; a
member of the Theosophical
Society, 255
Edmonds, Chief Justice, on the
number of American spiritual-
ists, 216
Edmonds, Miss Laura, 243
Ego, the, 48, 89, 136, 138, 162
Egypt, antiquity of, 260-261
Egypt, Hierophants of, 247
Egyptian pyramids, the, 208, 260
Electric light, 203
Electricity, 93

Elphinstone College, 70, 303
Ennemoser's History of Magic^

quoted, 321, 330
Esdaile, Dr. James, his Natural
and Mesmeric Clairvoyance,
quoted, 149, 150, 15 1
Esoteric Buddhism, 29, 43
Etchmiadzine, monastery of,

309

Ether, 100
Euhemerization, 350
Eutychius, on Zoroastrianism,

308
Exorcism, special forms of, 243

Fasces, Roman, 67

Fauvety, M., on human frater-
nity, 188

F61ix P6re, his taunt to the
Academic, 61, 200

Finis coronal opus, 1S5

Fire-philosophers, 55

Fire-worship, 308, 315

Flammarion, Camille, 255

Fludd, Robert, on Fire, 315-316

Folk-lore, 251

Force, 60, 100

Framji Cowasji Hall, Bombay

49' 63 , . r o

France, 79 ; population ot, 27b

Freemasons, their means of
mutual identification, 56

French Communist refugees,
conspiracies of, 57

Galileo, 149, 289
Ganpatrao, Mr., editor of the

hidti Prakash, his asperations

of the Theosophists, 186, 188
Gathas, the, 145
Gautama, 59, 74, 112, 168, 247
Gems, 214
Geometry, 146
Germany, rupture of wi^h the

Pope, 79
God, 38, 62, 73, no
Gould, Baring, his Cniious

Myths of the ^Middle Ages, 326.
Gray, quoted, 125
Gregory, Professor William, 210

Haeckel, 115
Hafiz, quoted, 183-184
Haldane and Kemp's translation

of Schopenhauer, 15
Hare, Robert, the Nestor of

American Chemistry, 217,

218, 220

INDEX.

Harris, Rev. Thon^as Lake, ex- \

periences of, 222
Hashtop, Queen, temple of, 262
Hebrew Cosmogony, 289
Hermes, rod of, 325
Hermetic doctrine, the, 46
Hierophants of Egypt, 247
Himavat, short cut to, 98
'Hindu, 58

Hinduism, what is good in, 103
Hints oil Esoteric 1 heosophy^ 90
Hume, David, his Enquijy con-
cerning Htiman Understand-
ing, 198; argument of, 235
Hunter, Dr., his England's Work

in India, quoted, 278
Huxley, Professor, his Lay
Sermons, quoted, 24 ; his
Physical Basis of Life
quoted, 61, ^t^, 200; quoted,
288, 2S9, 291 ; his Lay Ser-
mons, quoted, 298

Illumination, 247, 314

Illusion, 153

Immortality, individual, 25, 59

Incantation, 329, 335

India, 49 ; industry and re-
sources of, 77; products of, 78

India,'Past, Present, and Future,
257-283

Indian Press, its attitude towards
the Theosophical Society, 71

Infallibility, out of fashion, 49

Initiate, the, 96, 157

Ireland, over-populated, 27S

Irish National Church, disestab-
lishment of, 79

Isis Unveiled, 54, 57, 59, 191,

297, 319
Islam, 58

J ACER, Dr., experiments of,

35<J-357
Jain, the, 58

Jennings, Mr. Hargrave, his j

Kosicrucidns, quoted, 315 I

Jesuits, expulsion of from France, '

79 '

esus, 59; temptation of, 205, |

20S ; his best maxims taught
by others, 299; suspected of
employing magic arts, 327 ;
mythical biographies of, 351,

353

Jews, 58

Jiva, %-], 94, 95

Jivan-Miikta, or soul emanci-
pated, 63

Jiv-Atma, or life principle, the,
138

Jones, Sir William, 258, 312.

Kabala, the Chaldean sacred
^volume, 312, 315

Kabeiric mysteries, 318, 321

Kaiviin, aZoroastrian sage, 179

Kamarupa, 88, 94

Karma, or merit, the corner-
stone of Religion, 102

Kepler, 149

Keshub Babu Chunder Sen, 116,
126

Kilauea, crater of, 164

Kinetic theory of gases, 285,
291

Kingsford, Anna, The Perfect
Way, 46

Koh-i-noor diamond, the, 138,

374
Koran, the, 207
Korner, Dr. Justinus, 211
Krishna, 156, 350, 351
Kurd, appearance of a, 240-241

Lane-Fox, Mr., 255

Lange's History of Material'

ism, quoted, 29, 30
Le Conte, quoted, 61
Levi, Eliphas, his Dogme et

Rituel de la Hatite Magie, &c. ,

344
Levitation, 211

Leyden jar, how discharged,

.^57
Life-principle, the, 138
Lindsay, Lord, 234, 255
Lingasarira, 87, 95
Loadstone, powos of, 214
London, idle capital in, 77

INDEX.

581

Lubbock, Sir John, his address
to the British Association,
285, 286, 292, 297

LuUy, Raymond, 112-I13

Luxman Sen, 160

MacGreCxOR, Dr., his History
of the Sikh War, 143

MacMahon, Marshal, 79

Magianism, 312

Magic, 149, 325

Magnetism, 207

Mahatmas, description of 97,
98 ; the author receives visits
from, 123, 124, 139, 196

Mahiijinastava, The, quoted,
162

Mahomet, 206

Maitland, Edward, The Perfect
Way, 46

Man, 132, 133

Manas, 88, 94, 95

Mandiikyo Upanishad, 95

Manetho, dynasties of, 260

Mapes, Professor, 234

Materiahsm, unscientific, xii.

Matter, our Western ignorance
of, 24

Maudsley, Henry, 100

Mayavirupa, %'^, 89, 92,95, lOl,
123, 133, 134, 135

Mediumism, 109

Mediumship, peril of, 244

Mena, monarchy of, 260

Merit, or Karma, the corner-
stone of Religion, 102

Mesmer, 207

Mesmerism, a necessary branch
of study, 108 ; ordinary ex-
periments, 138, 150-151

Mexico and Peru, sacred litera-
ture of, 62

Mill, John Stuart, his Disserta-
tions and Discussions, quoted,

137-138
Milton, the Heaven of, 63, 144
Miracles, Hume on, 198
Miraculous phenomena, im-
possibility of, 91
Missionaries, Christian, 58

Mohini, Mr., 45

Mohsan Fani, 84, 1 78

Moksha, 144, 187, 313

Montezuma, 319

Moore, Thomas, quoted, 202

Moses, 58, 267, 308

Moses, Rev. Stninton, 226, 22S

Moslem Paradise, 63

Mozart, 238

Muktatma, or soul universalized,

Mukti, or emancipation, T05,

107
Milller, George, "the Lord's

Dealings with," 329
Milller, Max, 15 ; his Chips from

a German Workshop, quoted,

16, 259, 312 ; on the Buddhist

moral code, 361
Mysticism, literature of, 143

"Nature," motto of the journal
so-called, 40 ; report of an
address taken from, 285

Nazars, the, 305

Neilgherries, the, 98

Neo-Platonists of Alexandria,

55. 247
Nihilist party in Russia, 79

Nirvana, 105, 206, 313, 356,

357, 3<JO, 363
Numa, 319, 321

Occult Sciences, the, 60, 198
Od, or Odyle, 156, 158, 209-

212, 249
Odic aura, 156
Oliver, Rev. George, his History

of Initiation, quoted, 347
Omar, sword of, 302
Ontology, 85
Oriental philosophy, 54
Orpheus, on the loadstone, 214
Ossetines, the, their curious

custom of sepulture, 342
Ouvarof, Count, the Nestor of

Russian archaeologists, 341,

342
Owen, Robert Dale, 216, 231

382

INDEX.

Palestine Exploration Society,

340

Palingene:-iis, Asiatic theory of,
106

Parabrahma, 59, 145

Paracelsus, 207

Parasnatha, 58, 331

Parsi Archeeological Society at
Pjombay, x.

Parsi, the, 58, 331.

Patanjaii, his Yoga Sjilras, 90,
144, 147, 148, 153, 154

Peebles, Mr. J. M., his researches
at York, 228

People from the other Woi'ld, 89,
139, 241, 242

Perty, Professor, 21 1

Philadelphian, a name that might
have been adopted by the
Theosophical Society, 177

Phonograph, the, 203

Pierce, Mr., 223

Pius IX., Pope, anathematizes
mediumship, 243

Plato, 267

Pliny, quoted, 321

Plotinus, the philosopher, why
he refused to reveal his birth-
place and parentage, 303

Pope, Alexander, quoted, 62,
131, 201

Porphyi'y, the pupil and liter-
ary biographer of Plotinus,

Prarthana Samaj, 54, 175, 271
Prayer, efficacy of, 329
Precious stones, 214
Prideaux, his Ancient Universal

History^ quoted, 308
Printing, discovery of, 79
Prognostication, power of, 109
Progress, real and false, 292-297 ;

a relative term, 296 ; mask of

removed, 300
Psychic phenomena, 146, 147
Psychology, 48, 86, loS, 129 ;

sceptre of, 137, 148, 273
Psychometry, 109, 138, 208,

209, 249
pundits, the, attitudeof, 127, 128

Puranas, the, 207
Pythagoras, on precious stones,
214

Raja Rammohun Roy, 45
Rajendralala Mittra, Dr., his

story of a Sadhu, 141
Raniayana, story in the, 90
Rammohun Roy, 45
Raymond Lully, 112- 1 13
Reformation, the, 79
Reichenbach, Baron von, his Re •

searches on Magnetism, 121,

154, 155^158, 207 ; -209, 210,

211, 213, 249, 343
Reincarnationists, modern school

of, 106
Religion, 81

Renan, Ernest, quoted^ 260
Rishis, the, 58, 71, 99, 103,

no, 113, 115, 118, 121, 128,

247, 265

Roman /rzjr^j, 67
Rule, Margaret, levitation of, 21 1
Runjit Singh, 142, 143
Russia, 56, 57, 79.

Saehapathy Swami, work

published by, 151, 154
Sadhu, story of a, 141 ; burial

of a, 142-143; pretended, 164
Sahasradalam,^94
Sakya-Muni, 58, 73, 208, 314,353
Salem witchcraft horrors, 211
Samadhi, 139

Sankara Acharya, 73, 90, 208
Sanskrit literature, study of, 15,

258, 274
Sapphire, the, supposed magical

property of, 213
Sastras, the, 128, 133, 143, 145,

151, 156, 160
Schopenhauer, Arthur, on the

Vedas and Upanishads, 15, 33
Schweigger, quoted, 319
Science, 79
Stances, 139
Self, the serpent coiled beneath

the flowers of life, 184.
Sensuality, 68

INDEX.

-^.8

j"j

Shadadiakrams, 94

Shakespeare, quoted, 166

Shankar Pandurang Pandit, his
translation of the Vedas, 274

Simla, 291

Sinbad, in the Valley of Dia-
monds, 119

Sinnett, Mr. Alfred Percy, his
Esoteric Biiddhisui, 29 ; and
Occult World, 43, 46, 97

** Sitarama Anjaniyam (Cosmic
matter)," 95

Slade, Dr. Henry, his rare
mediumist powers, 229; falsely
charged with dishonesty, 229-
230

Solavief, Professor, the " Her-
bert Spencer of Russia," 192

Somnambules, 212

Sorcery, 321

"Soul," meaning of the word,
130

Soul-principle, the, 139

Spencer, Herbert, on Religion,
20, 21, 23, 81, iro, 131, 134,

Spirit-rapping, 148, 220,225,226

Spiritualism, 22 ; literature of,

221

Spiritualists, ancient and modern,

55
Stewart, Professor Balfour, his

Unseen Universe, 25, 47, 100;

his Conservation of Energy^

quoted, 60-61, 62, 73

Sthulasarira, 87, 88, 93, 94, 133,

134

Supernaturalism, the curse of all

creeds, 91
Swami Dayanand Saraswati,

the eminent Aryan reformer, x
Swedenborg, 73, 144
Syllabus of the Vatican Council,

49

Table-moving, 225
Tait, Peter Guthrie, his Un-
seen Universe, 25, 47, 100
Talismans, secret of, 335
Talmud, the, 305

Technology, schools of, 76
Telephone, the, 203
Temple, Sir Richard, on the
decay of the Hindu faith, 271,

273.

Theodidaktoi of Greece, 247

Theosophical Society, 27-29 ; a
primary object of, 32, 41 ;
its raison d'etre, 49 ; its aims,
50; progress of, 51-52; its
platform, plans, and prospects,
53-56 ; arcana of, 56 ; its
organisation and constitution,
55-57 ; its attitude towards
religious belief?, 57-59; recep-
tious at Bombay, 70 ; not a
money-making body, 71 ; its
attitufle towards science, 85,
98-99 ; declared policy and.
platform of, 108 ; foundation
of, 123, 145, 146 : rules and
regulations of, 159, 175, 181 ;
not a miracle club, 193, 195,
203, 215, 338

Theosophist, The, 29 ; motto of,
40, 46, 126-127, 187, 189-190,
340

Theosophy, defined by Webster,
53 ; purposes to make men
better, 57 ; proper definition
of, 129, 148, 176, 177, 180,
184, 185, 197, 256

Theurgists, 55

Thought-reading, 228

Thought, transmissibility of,
109

Tibet, mystics of, 147

Training in Occult Science, 146,

I47» i<^3
Trance, 90, 109
Tripitikas, the, 60
Truth, absolute, 58
Tukaram, 186, 187

United States of America, 67,

75, 7^, n
Unity, 67

Universal Brotherhood, 146, 18^]^

189
University degrees, 75

3§4

INDEX.

Upanishads, the, 15, 28, 33, 39

Vasishta, 59

Vatican Council, syllabus of, 49

Vatsavana, 263

Vedantism, 151

Vedantists, the, 145

Vedas, the, 39 ; sublime utter-
ances of, 60, 112, 206, 274

Vcdic philosophy, 71

Vedic religion, x

Vestal mysteries, Roman, 319,
321

Visishtadvaitis, 114

Vital force, imparted by the
mesmerist, 109

Von Vay, Baroness, 210

Wade, Sir Claude, his Camp
and Court of Ruiijil SiiKjh,

143

V>\igncr, Professor, of St. Peters-
burg, his review of People
frovi the other JVorld^ 10^2.

Wallace, Alfred Russell, on
Hume's theory of miracles,
198 ; on spiritualist pheno-
mena, 225-227, 242 ; a mem-
ber of the Theosophical
Society, 255

Ward, Mr., his work on Indian

History, Literature, and My-
thology, quoted, 263-264

Webster, his definition of ' ' Theo-
sophy." 53

Williams, Prof. Monier, article
in the N'inctcenth Century
quoted, 331, 337-33S

Witchcraft, 149

Wordsworth, quoted, 40

Yoga, 90; science of, 129 ; four
stages of, 140, 147, 151,

153, 179, 265
Yoga Vidya, 129
Yogi, the, loi, 139, 147,

154, 179, 265, 279
Youngs, Mrs., raises a piano-
forte from the floor, 233, 234

152,

152,

Zaratusht, 20S, 302, 303, 304

Zcndavesla, 60, 207

ZoUner, Fr., 217, 229

Zoroaster, 58, 59, 74 ; Bactrian
rock-cut image of, 155, 168,
206, 301 ; real history of never
written, 307, et sapius seqq ,

Zoroastrian Religion, spirit of the,
301-348 _

Zoroastrianisin, x., 302,
the old life gone out of, 309

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genealogical tables show that care for minute accuracy which is the fashion
of the present day, and a very good fashion too." — Westminster Review.

" A book that people who like to saunter along the by-paths of history
will revel in. As, at the present time, there are thousands of people who
only care to read the gossip and scandal in 'society journals,' so there are
readers of history who chiefly delight in the gossip and scandal of bygone
days. From such people ' The Fortunate Lovers ' is certain to meet with a
hearty welcome, while even the more serious students of history will ri>e
from its perusal with a fuller and better knowledge of the times it deals
with." — Literary World.

"Many of the stories are not particularly edifying. . . . Has a distinct
value as a contribution to historical literature." — Court Circtdar.

Crown Sz'^, pp. viii. and 260, Cloth gilt, 6s.

Charles Dickens and the

Stage.

A Record of his Connection with the Drama as

Playwright and Critic.

By T. EDGAR PEMBERTON.

With New Portraits, in Character, of Miss Jennie Lee,
Mr Irving, and Mr Toole.

Contents : — The Stage in his Novels — Dickens as a Dramatist — Dickens as an Actor —
Adaptations and Impersonations — The Stage in his Speeches — The Stage in his Letter^ —
Dickens as a Dramatic Critic.

"The book is readable, as anything about Dickens is sure to be."—
Scots f nan.

"A charming v.'ORK. Mr Pemberton has spared no pains to look up all
sorts of details, and has added a full and excellent index." — Birmingliam

Post.

" He has done his work so completely that he has left little or nothing for
anyone who should desire to follow in his steps." — Literary World.

" Brimful of anecdote and reminiscences of a generation now passing
away, the book is stimulating as well as useful." — Publisher' s Circular.

" An example of book-making that will not be viewed with disfavour by
lovers of Dickens. . . . The book shows diligent research in many
directions. " — Saturday Review.

Croivn Zvo, pp. xiv. and 360, Cloth, Js. 6it.

Posthumous Humanity ;

A Study of Phantoms.

By ADOLPHE D'ASSIER,
member of the bordeaux academy of science.

Translated and Annotated by Henry S. Olcott, President
OF the Theosophical Society.

Contents : — Facts Establishing the Existence of the Posthumous Personality in Man-
Its V^arious Modes of Manifestation — Facts Establishing the Existence of a Second
Personality in the Living Man— Its Various Modes of Manifestation — Facts Establishing-
the Existence of the Personality in Animals, and concerning a Posthumous Animalitj'—
Fluidic Form of Vegetables— Fluidic Form of Gross Bodies— Character of the Posthumous
Being — Its Physical Constitution — Its Aversion to Light — Its Reservoir of Living Force —
Its Ballistic—The Nervous Fluid— Electric Animals— Electric Persons — Electric Plants —
The Mesmeric Ether and the Personality which it Engenders — The Somnambule — The
Sleep-talker — The Seer— The Turning-table — The Talking-table— The Medium— IMiracles
of the Ecstatics — Prodigy of Magic— The Incubus — The Obsessing Spirit— Causes of the
Rarity of the Living Phantom— Causes of the Rarity of the Trans-sepulchral Phantom-
Resemblance of the Spiritistic Phenomena to the Phenomena of the Posthumous Order^
Lycanthropy — Glance at the Fauna of the Shades — Their Pre-occupations — How thej-
Prolong their Existence — The Posthumous Vampire.

Truth says : — "If you care for Gi-iosT stories, duly accredited, ex-
cellently told, and scientifically explained, you should read the
translation by Colonel Olcott of M. Adolphe d'Assier's 'Posthumous
Humanity,' a study of phantoms. There is no dogmatism so dogged and
offensive as that of the professed sceptic — of the scientific sceptic especially —
who ex vi termini ought to keep the doors of his mind hospitably open ; and
it is refreshing, therefore, to find such scientists as Wallace, Crookes, and M.
d'Assier, who is a Positivist, in the ranks of the Psychical Research host.
For my own part, though I have attended the seance of a celebrated London
medium, and there convinced myself beyond all doubt of his imposture, I no
more think that the detection of a medium fraud disposes of the whole
question of ghosts, &c., than that the detection of an atheist priest disposes
of the whole question of Christianity. Whatever view you take of this con-
troversy, however, I can promise you that you will find the book interesting
at least if not convincing. "

"This collection of hopeless trash . . . Col. Olcott's notes are beneath
contempt ... a more piteous literary exhibition than the entire volume has
rarely come under our notice." — Knowledge [?J.

" An interesting and suggestive volume." — Nezv York Tribune.

"The book is written with evident sincerity." — Litei'ary World.

" There is no end to the wonderful stories in this book." — Court Circular.

"The book may be recommended to the attention of the marines."

Scotsman.

" A book which will be found very fascinating by all except those person^

who have neither interest nor belief for anything but what they can under-
stand . ' ' — Manchester Exatimier.

" The subject is treated brilliantly, entertainingly, and scientifi-
cally."— New York Com. Advertiser,

" Though this is a good deal to say, Mr George Red way has hardly
published a more curious book." — Glasgow Herald.

*'The ghostly will find much comfort in the book." — Saturday Review,

*' The book has an interest as evidence of that study of the occult which is
again becoming in a certain degree fashionable." — Manchester Guardian.

Demy %vo, pp. xiv. and 307, Cloth, 'js. 6d.

The Life, Times, and Writings
of Thomas Cranmer, D.D.,

The First Reforming Archbishop of Canterbury.

. By CHARLES HASTINGS COLLETTE.
Dedicated to Edward White, 93RD Archbishop of Canterbury.

Contents : — Cranmer at the University of Cambridge — Cranmer's Participation in the
Proceedings of the Divorce of Henry VIII. from Catherine — His Second Marriage as a
Priest — His Oaths on Consecration as an Archbishop — The Fate of Anne Boleyn : Henry's
Marriages with Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves. Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr,
and Cranmer's alleged Participation in these Acts — Henry VIII.'s Political and Social
Reforms under Cranmer's alleged Guidance — Persecutions, and Cranmer's alleged Par-
ticipation in them — The Progress of the Reformation under Henry VIII. and Edward VL
— Cranmer's Fall and Martyrdom — His alleged Recantations — His Writings — John Fox,
the Martyrologist — The Beatification of Bishop Fisher, the Chancellor More, and others,
as Martyrs.

"Mr Collette brings to his task both breadth and depth of knowledge,
and a desire to be scrupulously free from prejudice." — Globe. " He is
animated by an anti-Papal spirit. . . . nevertheless, his book is readable."
— Scotsman. "No future student can afford to neglect his work." — British
and Colonial Printer. "His book deserves to be read, and his pleadings
should be well considered." — Anglican Church Alagazine. " He has stated
HIS evidence with a fulness and fairness beyond CAVIL." — Daily
News. " Mr Collette avoids bitterness in his defence, and does not scruple
to blame Cranmer when he thinks blame is deserved." — Glasgow Herald.
"On the whole, we think that we have in this book a just and impartial
character of Cranmer." — Record. "This book is a valuable contribution to
the literature concerning a period which to the lover of religious liberty is
of the deepest interest. ... it is a work of research of learning, of sound
and generally of impartial judgment," — Rock.

Post 8vo, -cuitJi Plates^ pp. viii. and 359, Cloth gilt, 10s. 6d.
KABBALA DENUDATA,

The Kabbalah Unveiled.

Containing the Following Books of the Zohar : —

1. The Book of Concealed Mystery.

2. The Greater Holy Assembly.

3. The Lesser Holy Assembly.

Translated into English from the Latin Version of

Knorr Von Rosenroth, and Collated with the

Original Chaldee and Hebrew Text,

By S. L. MACGREGOR MATHERS.

The Bible, which has been probably more misconstrued than any other
book ever written, contains numberless obscure and mysterious passages
which are utterly unintelligible without some key wherewith to unlock their
meaning. That key is given in the Kabbala.

"A translation which leaves nothing to be desired." — Saturday
Review.

*' Mr Mathers has done his work with critical closeness and care, and has
presented us with a book which will probably be welcomed by many students.
In printing and binding the volume is all that could be desired, and the
diagrams are very carefully drawn, and are calculated to be very useful to all
who are interested in the subject." — Nonconfoi'inist.

"We may add that it is worthy of perusal by all who, as students of
psychology, care to trace the struggles of the human mind, and to note its
passage from animalism through mysticism to the clearness of logical light."
— Knozoledge.

" Mr Mathers is certainly a great Kabbalist, if not the greatest of our
time." — AtheiKTuni.

The Kabbalah is described by Dr Ginsburg as " a system of religious
philosophy, or more properly of theosophy, which has not only exercised for
hundreds of years an extraordinary influence on the mental development of
so shrewd a people as the Jews, but has captivated the minds of some of the
greatest thinkers in Christendom in the 1 6th and 17th centuries." He adds
that "it claims the greatest attention of both the philosopher

AND theologian."

Crotvn ^to, wrapper, \s.
JOURNAL OF THE WAGNER SOCIETY.

The Meister.

Edited by W. ASHTON ELLIS.

Contains translations from the literary works of Richard Wagner; extracts from
letters that have passed between the Poet-Composer and other men who have left their
mark upon the art life of the day ; original articles and essays explanatory of the inner
meaning of Wagners dramas; articles upon kindred topics of aesthetics, metaphysics, or
social questions— in this category, reference to the works of Liszt and Schopenhauer will
naturally take a prominent position; notes upon the course of events in Europe and
America bearing upon Wagner's dramas, &c., &c.

In Crown Svo, pp. 2S6, Cloth extra, 5^.

A SouPs Comedy.

By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE.

A tragedy in its ancient and legitimate sense, depicts the triumph of destiny
over man; the comedy, or story with a happy ending, represents the triumph
of man over destiny. It is in this sense that the spiritual history of Jasper
Cartwright is called a Soul's Comedy.

The Literary World says : — "Mr Waite is possessed of genuine inspira-
tion that lifts his work above the mass of wares sent forth every year to the
world as poetry. The presence of an over subtle mysticism, and even of an
occasional tinge of almost Rosicrucian darkness, will not prevent lovers of
poetry from enjoying the many passages in his play as remarkable for power
of thought as for beauty of expression. Mr Waite's sympathy with Nature,
and his descriptive powers are likewise of a high order."

The Graphic says : — " Some time has elapsed since we paid a sincere tri-
bute to the many beauties of ' Israfel,' and we are not sorry to meet with
another work from the same pen in 'A Soul's Comedy.' .... It may suffice
to say in general that the poem, cast in a quasi-dramatic form, is a very noble
one, though painful to a degree. The main idea of Jasper's origin is so
horrible in its pathetic tragedy as to raise reminiscences of Ford's masterpiece,
and the after-episode of Mary Blake is little less distressing ; but out of these
seemingly unpromising materials Mr Waite has evolved a tale of human sor-
row, struggle, and final triumph, such as must appeal to the heart of every
true man. . . . The poetry rises at times to unusual heights, as, for
instance, in the description of Mary's death (p. 31), the benediction in the
monastery chapel, Austin Blake's prologue to the third part, or, best of all,

the scene where Jasper resigns Gertrude to his friend Jasper's prose

fairy tale is delightful, though not, it may be, suited to all comprehensions.
. . . Taken altogether, this is a true and worthy poem."

^to, pp. 27i Cloth extra, 1$. 6d. The woodcuts coloiired by hand, 55.
Issue limited to 400 copies plain and 60 coloured.

The Dance of Death,

In Painting and in Print,

By T. TYNDALL WILDRIDGE.

With Woodcuts.

Probably few subjects have excited more conjecture or given rise to more
mistakes than the " Dance of Death." The earliest painting of the Dance is
said to be that at Basel in 143 1. The first printed edition was published about
1485. The blocks illustrating Mr Wildridge's work are a series found in a
northern printing office many years ago. They seem to be of considerable
age, and are somewhat close copies of Holbein's designs so far as they go,
but in which of the hundred editions they originally appeared has not to the
present been ascertained.

Fcap. Svo, pp. 40, Cloth limp, \s. 6d.

Light on the Path.

A Treatise written for the Personal Use of Those who

ARE Ignorant of the Eastern Wisdom, and who

Desire to Enter within its Influence.

Written down bv^ M. C,
fellow of the theosophical society.

" So far as we can gather from the mystic language in which it is couched,
' Light on the Path ' is intended to guide the footsteps of those who have dis-
carded the forms of religion while retaining the moral principle to its fullest
extent. It is in harmony with much that was said by Socrates and Plato,
although the author does not use the phraseology of those philosophers, but
rather the language of Buddhism, easily understood by esoteric Buddhists,
but difficult to grasp by those without the pale. ' Light on the Path ' may, we
think, be said to be the only attempt in this language and in this
CENTURY to PUT PRACTICAL OCCULTISM INTO WORDS ; and it may be added,
by way of further explanation, that the character of Gautama Buddha, as
shown in Sir Edwin Arnolds' ' Light of Asia,' is the perfect type of the be-
ing who has reached the threshold of Divinity by this road. That it has
reached a third edition speaks favourably for this mtiltiim in parvo of the
science of occultism ; and ' M. C may be expected to gather fresh laurels in
future. " — Saturday Revietv.

2)2?)io, pp. Co, Cloth gilt, \s, 6d.; %uith pack of ']% Tarot Cards, ^s.
FORTUNE TELLING CARDS.

The Tarot ;

Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune Telling,
and Method of Play, &c.

By S. L. MACGREGOR MATHERS.

"The designs of the twenty-one trump cards are extremely singular ; in
order to give some idea of the manner in which Mr Mather uses them in
fortune -telling it is necessary to mention them in detail, together with the
general significance which he attaches to each of them. The would-be carto-
mancer may then draw his own particular conclusions, and he will find con-
siderable latitude for framing them in accordance with his predilections. It
should further be mentioned that each of the cards when reversed conveys
a meaning the contrary of its primary signification. No. I is the Bateleur or
Juggler. The Juggler symbolizes Will. 2. The High Priestess, or female
Pope, represents Science, Wisdom, or Knowledge. 3. The Empress, is the
symbol of Action or Initiative. 4. The Emperor, represents Realization or
Development. 5. The Heirophant or Pope, is the symbol of Mercy and
Beneficence. 6. The Lovers, signify Wise Disposition and Trials sur-
mounted. 7. The Chariot, represents Triumph, Victory over Obstacles. 8.
Themis or Justice, symbolizes Equilibrium and Justice. 9. The Hermit,
denotes Prudence. 10. The Wheel of Fortune, represents Fortune, good or
bad. II. Fortitude, symbolizes Power or Might. 12. The Hanged Man
— a man suspended head downwards by one leg — means Devotion, Self-
Sacrifice. 13. Death, signifies Transformation or Change, 14. Temper-
ance, typifies Combination. 15. The Devil, is the image of Fate or Fatality.
16. The Lightning-stnick Tower, called also Maison-Dieu, shows Ruin, Dis-
ruption. 17. The Star, is the emblem of Hope. 18. The Moon, symbolizes
Twilight, Deception and Error. 19. The Sun, signifies Earthly Happiness.
20. The Last Judgment, means Renewal, Determination of a matter. 21.
The Universe, represents Completion and Reward, o. The Foolish Man,
signifies Expiating or Wavering. Separate meanings, with their respective
converses, are also attached to each of the other cards in the pack, so that
when they have been dealt out and arranged in any of the combinations
recommended by the author for purposes of divination, THE INQUIRER HAS

ONLY TO USE THIS LITTLE VOLUME AS A DICTIONARY IN ORDER TO READ

HIS FATE." — Sattirday Reviezv.

Third Edition, revised and enlarged.
Crozvn SvOf etched Frontispiece and Woodcuts, pp. 324, Cloth gilt, "js. 6d.

Magic, White and Black;

Or, The Science of Finite and Infinite Life.

Containing Practical Hints for Students of Occultism.
By FRANZ HARTMANN, M.D.

Contents : — The Ideal — The Real and the Unreal — Form — Life — Harmony — Illusion —
Consciousness — Unconsciousness — Transformations — Creation — Light, &c.

The Saturday Review says: — "In its closely-printed pages students of
occultism will find hints, ' practical ' and otherwise, likely to be of great
service to them in the pursuit of their studies and researches. ... A book
which may properly have the title of Magic, for if the readers succeed in
practically following its teaching, they will be able to perform the greatest of
all magical feats, the spiritual regeneration of Man. Dr Hartmann's book
has also gone into a third edition, and has developed from an insignificant
pamphlet, ' written originally for the purpose of demonstrating to a few
inexperienced inquirers that the study of the occult side of nature was not
identical with the vile practices of sorcery,' into a compendious volume, com-
prising, we are willing to believe, the entire philosophic system of
OCCULTISM. There are abundant evidences that the science of theosophy
has made vast strides in public estimation of late years, and that those
desirous of experimenting in this particular, and in many respects fascinating,
branch of ethics, have leaders whose teaching they can follow with satisfaction
to themselves."

The Scotsman says : — "Any one who studies the work so as to be able to
understand it, may become as familiar with the hidden mysteries of nature as
any occult philosopher ever was."

Crown %vo, pp. 265, Cloth extra, 6s,

Lotus :

A Psychological Romance.

By the Author of " A New Marguerite."

"Mystical, peculiar, engaging . . . the book has originality . . .
it is a graceful story of the sort which is said to make people — some people
— think, and will be read with mixed feelings by most." — Athenccum.

" A fierce and passionate book, which illustrates once more the hold that
our subject has on the popular imagination. To be read." — Light.

Crown ?>vo, pp. iv. and 2^6, Cloth {Cheap Edition), 6s.

A Professor of Alchemy

{DENIS Z AC H AIRE).
By PERCY ROSS,

AUTHOR OF "A COMEDY WITHOUT LAUGHTER."

"A clever story. . . . The hero is an alchemist who actually succeeds in
manufacturing pure gold." — Coiu't Journal.

" Shadowy and dream-like." — Athenceuni.

"An interesting and pathetic picture." — Literary World,

"The story is utterly tragical, and is powerfully told." — Westminster
Revieiv.

' ' A vivid picture of those bad old times. " — Knoivledge.

" Sure of a special circle of readers with congenial tastes." —
Graphic.

" This is a story of love — of deep, un(Jying, refining love — not without sug-
gestions of Faust. The figure of Berengaria, his wife, is a noble and touch-
ing one, and her purity and sweetness stand out in beautiful relief from the
gloom of the alchemist's laboratory and the horrors of the terrible Inquisition
into whose hands she falls. The romance of the crucible, however, is not all
permeated by sulphurous vapours and tinged with tartarean smoke. There is
often a highly dramatic element." — Glasgozo He7-ald.

Fcap. 'S>vo, pp. 56, Cloth limp, \s.

The Shakespeare Classical
Dictionary ;

Or, Mythological Allusions in the Plays of
Shakespeare Explained.

For the Use of Schools and Shakespeare Reading

Societies.

By H. M. SELBY.

" A handy little work of reference for readers and students of Shakespeare."
-School Board Chronicle.

"The book presents a great deal of information in a very small compass."
-School Newspaper.

"Will be found extremely useful by non-classical students of Shakespeare,
, . . and even to the classical student it will convey much useful information. "
— Educational Times.

" Will be greatly appreciated in the class-room." — Glasgozv Herald.

"Carefully compiled from more authoritative books of reference." — Scots-
man.

"The unlearned reader is thus enabled to increase very greatly his enjoy-
ment of Shakespeare." — Literary World.

" We have tested the book by looking for several of the obscurest
mythological names mentioned by Shakespeare ; in each case we found the
name inserted and followed by a satisfactory explanation." — The ScJwolmaster.

Demy Svo, pp. iv. and 299, Cloth gilt, 10s. 6d.

Serpent Worship,

And other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism=

By C. STANILAND WAKE.

Contents:— Rivers of Life— Phallism in Ancient Religions— Origin of Serpent Worship—
The Adamites — The Descendants of Cain — Sacred Prostitution— Marriage among Primitive
Peoples— Marriage by Capture— Development of the "'Family" — The Social Position of
Woman as affected by "Civilization" — Spiritism and Modern Spiritualism — Totems and
Totemism — Man and the Ape.

*' The most important of the thirteen essays discusses the origin of Serpent
Worship. Like other papers which accompany it, it discusses its subject from
a wide knowledge of the literature of earlv religions and the allied themes of
anthropology and primitive marriage. . . . The remaining essays are written

WITH MUCH LEARNING AND IN A CAREFUL SPIRIT OF INQUIRY, happily

free from the crude mysticism with which the discussion of these subjects has
often been mixed up. They may be recommended to the attention of all
interested in anthropology and the history of religion as interesting labours
in this field of research and speculation." — Scotsman, October 31.

" So obscure and complex are these subjects that any contribution, how-
ever slight, to their elucidation, may be welcomed. Mr Wake's criticism of
the systems of others is frequently acute. . . . Mr Wake is opposed to those
who hold that kinship through females and the matriarchate preceded paternal
kinship and the patriarchal family, and who connect the phenomena of
exogamy and of totemism with the matriarchal stage of society, and with
belief in a definite kinship of man with the remainder of the sensible universe.
He looks upon female kinship as having existed concurrently with a quasi-
patriarchal system." — Athenceum .

"Able, and REMARKAHLY INTERESTING." — Glasgo%v Herald. -

Wrapper, price is.

Journal of the Bacon Society.

Published Periodically.
Vol. I. [Parts i. tovi.),pp. x. and 2'j'&, 8vo, cloth, ds.

The main objects for which this Society has been established are : — {a) To
study the works of Francis Baccn, as Philosopher, Lawyer, Statesman, and
Poet, also his character, genius, and life, his influence on his own and suc-
ceeding times, and the tendencies and results of his writings ; {h) To
investigate Bacon's supposed authorship of certain works unacknowledged by
him, including the Shakespearian dramas and poems.

Fcap. 8vo, pp. viii. and 120, Cloth, y. 6d.

A Wayfarer's Wallet.

Dominus Redivivus.

By henry G. HEWLETT,

AUTHOR OF "a SHEAF OF VERSES."

"The title * Dominus Redivivus ' indicates the aim of the poem. . . . The
author wishes to tell the stoiy of the actual Jesus, and to contrast his teaching
with that of the Churches professing to be Christian. . . . He belongs to
the great Church to be, which will some day include not only the real Jesus
as one of its worshippers, but Gautama and Socrates, and Plato and ' every
holy name which blessed the past.' The work of this Church is to break
down caste, to help the poor, to sweeten all the life of man. This is
sufficient, we trust, to guide some readers to a book interesting in itself, and
probably destined to set many a wavering mind on a path at once definite
and right in regard to Christianity." — The hiqtiirer.

"A collection of verses on various subjects and in various styles. . . .
Not one but is worth reading : all have the melodiousness and fluency of
spontaneity, the ring of poetry. . . . ' Dominus Redivivus,' by far the
largest poem in the book, is a plea for the Christianity of Christ, in which
there is a wealth both of poetry and thought." — Liverpool Daily Post.

" Mr Henry G. Hewlett's new volume of verse . . . has many fresh and
attractive pieces, and not a dull one among its contents. . . . The ballads
will prove most widely attractive. . . . The sonnets . . . show Mr
Hewlett's power of pithy, forcible expression at its best. The volume, as a
whole, will be read with pleasure from first to last by lovers of poetry. " —
Scotsman.

Crown 2>i'o, pp. viii. and 632, Cloih gilt, los. be'.

In Praise of Ale;

Or, Songs, Ballads, Epigrams, and Anecdotes

relating to Beer, Malt, and Hops.

With some curious particulars concerning Ale-wives
AND Brewers, Drinking-Clubs and Customs.

Collected and Arranged by W. T. MARCH ANT.

Contents : — Introductory — History — Carols and Wassail Songs— Church Ales and
Observances — Whitsun Ales— Political — Harvest Songs — General Songs — Barley and
Malt — Hops — Scotch Ale Songs — Local and Dialect Songs — Trade Songs— Oxford Songs —
Ale Wives — Brewers — Drinking Clubs and Customs— Royal and Noble Drinkers — Black
Beer — Drinking Vessels — Warm Ale — Facts, Scraps, and Ana.

"Mr Marchant has collected a vast amount of odd, amusing, and (to him
that hath the sentiment of beer) suggestive and interesting matter. His
volume (we refuse to call it a book) is A volume to have. If only as a
manual of quotations, if only as a collection of songs, it is a volume to
HAVE. We confess to having read in it, for the first time in our lives, the
right and authentic text of ' A Cobbler there was ' and ' Why, Soldiers,
why ; ' and to have remarked, as regards the first, that our ancestors were
very easily amused, and, as regards the second, that it has a curious at?' de
famille with the triolet. These are very far from being Mr Marchant's only
finds; but that is all the more reason why we should linger upon them." —
Saturday Review.

"A kind of scrap-book, crowded with prose and verse which is always
curious AND VERY OFTEN ENTERTAINING, and it may be read at random —
beginning at the end, or in the middle, or at any page you like, and reading
either back or forwards — almost as easily as the ' Varieties ' column in a
popular weekly print." — Saturday Review.

"While, on the one hand, the book is, as nearly as possible, a complete
collection of lyrics written about the national beverage, ... it abounds, on
the other hand, in particulars as to the place which ale has held in the
celebration of popular holidays and customs. It discourses of barley-malt
and hops, brewers, drinkers, drinking clubs, drinking vessels, and the like ;
and, in fact, approaches the subject from all sides, bringing together, in the
space of 600 pages, A host of curious and amusing details." — Globe^
April 9.

"Mr Marchant is a staunch believer in the merits of good ale. In the
course of his reading he has selected the materials for a Bacchanalian antho-
logy which MAY ALWAYS BE READ WITH AMUSEMENT AND PLEASURE. His

materials he has set in a framework of gossiping dissertation. Much curious
information is supplied in the various chapters on carols and wassail songs,
church ales and observances, Whitsun ales, harvest songs, drinking clubs and
customs, and other similar matters. At snug country inns at which the
traveller may be called upon to stop there should be, in case of a rainy hour
in the day, or an empty smoke-room at night, a copy of a book which sings
so loudly the praises of mine host and his wares." — A'otes and Queries,

" The memory of John Barleycorn is in no danger of passing away for lack
of a devoted prophet. The many songs, poems, and pieces of prose written
In Praise of Ale form a fine garden for the anthologist to choose a bouquet
from. . . . It is plainly AN ORIGINAL collection, made with diligence
and good taste in selection. . . . Mr Marchant's anthology may be recom-
mended to the curious as an interesting and carefully compiled collection
of poetical and satirical pieces about beer in all its brews. " — Scotsman.

" The author has gone to ancient and modern sources for his facts, and
has not contented himself with merely recording them, but has woven them
into a readable history with much skill and wit." — American Bookseller.

"Although its chief aim is to be amusing, it is sometimes instructive as
well. . . . His stories may at times be a little long, but they are never
broad." — Glasgotv Herald.

" What teetotallers would call A tippler's text-book . . . a collection
of songs and ballads, epigrams and anecdotes, which may be called uniqiceJ'^
— Pall Mall Gazette.

" Beer, however, in conjunction with mighty roast beef, according to Mr
Marchant, has made England what it is, and accordingly he writes his book
to show how the English have ever loved good ale, and how much better
that is for them than cheap and necessarily inferior spirits or doctored wines.
Be that as it may, we have here a collection of occasional verse — satires,
epigrams, humorous narratives, trivial ditties, and ballads — VALUABLE AS
illustrations of manners." — Literary World.

Crown Sz'i?, //. xlii. aiid 302, cloth, ']s. 6d.

Spirit Revealed.

The Book for the Age.

The Nature of the First Great Cause, and the Coming Christ

or Messiah ; The Approaching End of the World, or

the Consummation of the Age ; Life, Death, and

Regeneration ; The Religious, Political,

and Social Principles of the Future.

A REVELATION OF THE LATTER DAYS,

By WM. C. ELDON SERJEANT.

This " revelation of the latter days, " by a New Dispensationist treats of
" The nature of the First Great Cause and the Coming Christ or Messiah" ;
" The Approaching End of the World or the Consummation of the Age " ;
" Life, Death, and Regeneration"; " The Religious, Political, and Social
Principles of the Future"; and proposes the formation of "an universal
association for the establishment and support of the Divine rights to which
all are entitled."

(,6 pa\;es, lar:;-e Sw, Ctoih ^ilt, price 6s.

Lectures on Diseases of the Eye.

By CHARLES BELL TAYLOR, F.R.C.S. & M.D. Edin.,

fellow of the medical society of london ; late president of the

parisian medical society ; consulting ophthalmic surgeon to

the nottingham union hospital; consulting ophthalmic

surgeon to the midland institution for the blind ;

honorary surgeon to the nottingham and

midland eye infirmary, etc., etc.

Illustrated with Photographs and Numerous Woodcuts.

Contents :— Lectures on Cataract— Squint— Glaucoma— Optico-Ciliary Neurotomy —
Tlie Use and Abuse of Mydriatics— Eye Troubles in General Practice.

" The descriptions of the diseases mentioned are well given, and may very
advantageously be read by the general practitioner. " — Lancet.

" To those who wish to perfect themselves in ophthalmic surgery, the book
will be found a really valuable help." — Hospital Gazette.

"A valuable course of Lectures calling for something more than passing
notice, an opinion which all who read the discourses will heartily endorse."
— Asclepiad.

Crown ?iVo, pp. xii. atid 666, Cloth, los. 6d.

Myths, Scenes, and Worthies

of Somerset.

By Mrs E. BOGER.

Contents :— Bladud, King of Britain ; or, The Legend of Bath— Joseph of Arimathea
and the Legend of Glastonbury— Watchet, The Legend of St Decuman— Porlock and St
Dubritius— King Arthur in Somerset— St Keyna the Virgin, of Keynsham— Gildas
Badonicus, called Gildas the Wise, also Gildas the Querulous— St Brithwald, Archbishop
of Canterbury— King Ina in Somerset, Ina and Aldhelm— St Cougar and Congresbury—
Hun, the Leader of the Sumorsaetas, at the Battle of Ellandune— King Alfred m Somerset,
and the Legend of St Neot— St Athelm. Archbishop of Canterbury— Wulfhelm, Archbishop
of Canterbury— The Landing of the Danes at Watchet— The 1 imes of St Dunstan; His

Life and Legends — Muchelney Abbey — Ethelgar, Archbishop of Canterbury — Sigeric or
Siricius, Archbishop of Canterbury — Elfeah, Elph^ge, or Alphege, Archbishop of Canter-
bury— Ethelnoth, or Agelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury — Montacute and the Legend of
Waitham Cross — Porlock, and Harold son of Godwin — Glastonbury after the Conquest,
Bishop Thurstan — William of Malmesbury, called also " Somersetanus" — The Philo-
sophers of Somerset in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries — The Rose of Cannington ;
Joan Clifford, commonly called "Fair Rosamond" — John de Courcy — St Ulric the
Recluse, or St Wulfric the Hermit — Sir William de Briwere — Woodspring Priory, and the
Murderers of Thomas a Becket — Richard of Ilchester, or Richard Tocklive or More —
Halswell House, near Bridgewater — The Legend of the House of Tynte — Witham Priory
and St Hugh of Avalon (in Burgundy) — William of Wrotham — Joceline Trotman, of Wells
— Hugh Trotman, of Wells— Roger Bacon — Sir Henry Bracton, Lord Chief Justice in the
Reign of Henry IIL — William Briwere (Briewere, Bruere, or Brewer) — Dunster Castle,
Sir Reginald de Mohun, Lady Mohun — Fulke of Samford — Sir John Hautville and Sir
John St Loe — Sir Simon de Montacute — The Evil Wedding, Chew Magna and Stanton
Drew — Robert Burnel — Somerton, King John of France — Stoke-under-Ham, Sir
Matthew Gournay — Bristol (St Mary Redcliffe), The Canyges ; Chatterton — Thomas de
Beckyngton — The Legend of Sir Richard Whittington — The Legend of the Abbot of
Muchelney — Sebastian Cabot — Taunton and its Story — Giles Lord Daubeney and the
Cornish Rebellion, King Ina's Palace and South Petherton — John Hooper, The Marian
Persecution — The Paulets, Pawlets, or Pouletts, of Hinton St George — Richard Edwardes
— Lord Chief Justice Popham — The Last Days of Glastonbury — William Barlow and the
Times of Edward VL — Robert Parsons, or Persons — Henry Cuff— Sir John Harrington —
The Wadhams, Wadham College, Oxford ; Ilminster, Merrifield, Ilton — Samuel Daniel —
Dr John Bull— Thomas Coryate, of Odcombe, in Somerset — John Pym — Sir Amias Preston
— Admiral Blake — William Prynne— Sir Ralph, Lord Hopton — Ralph Cudworth— On
Witches, Mrs Leakey, of Mynehead, Somerset — John Locke — Thomas Ken, D.D., some-
time Bishop of Bath and Wells — Trent House, Charles IL and Colonel Wyndham — The
Duke of Monmouth in Somerset — Prince George of Denmark and John Duddleston
of Bristol — Beau Nash, with some Account of the Early History of the City of Bath —
Wokey or Ockey Hole, near Wells— Captain St Loe — The State of the Church in the
Eighteenth Century, Mrs Hannah and Mrs Patty More and Cheddar — Dr Thomas
Young — Edward Hawkins, Provost of Oriel and Canon of Rochester — Charles Fuge
Lowder — A Tale of Watchet, The Death of Jane Capes— Captain John Hanning Speke —
Cheddar Cheese, West Pennard's Wedding Present to the Queen, 1839— In Memoriam,
1811-1833.

"Mrs Boger is to be praised for her enthusiasm and zeal. She is of
Somerset, and she naturally thinks it the wonder of England, if not of the
world," — Literary World.

" Every addition to the local collections of the myths and legends of our
country districts is to be welcomed when it is as carefully made as Mrs
Boger's laboriously compiled work, which teems WITH QUAINT STORIES,
SOME OF WHICH ARE EVEN BEAUTIFUL." — Westminster RevieziK

"This is the kind of book, we imagine, in which Thomas Fuller would
have expatiated with delight. Less topographical than his ' Worthies,' it
does what that delectable book did not profess to do ; it gives not only an
account of the illustrious natives, but the legends, traditions, historical
episodes, and general memorahilia which pertain to one famous county. Mrs
Boger's book ranges from Bladud, King of Britain, B.C. 900, to Arthur
Ilallum, who died in 1833." — Notes and Qite?-ies.

"Mrs Boger writes with such ability and enthusiasm. The work is one
which will have an influence in limits far wider than the borders of Somerset,

for FEW CAN READ IT WITHOUT PLEASURE, AND NONE WITHOUT PROFIT.

... To read her book carefully is to master the hagiology of the county." —
Morning- Post.

STANDARD WORKS

PUBLISHED BY

GEORGE REDWAY.

Crown 8vo, pp. 375, Cloth ^ 'js. dd.

Theosophy, Religion, and
Occult Science.

By henry S. OLCOTT,
president of the theosophical society.

With Glossary of Eastern Woiios.

Contents: — Theosophy or Materialism — Which? — The Theosophical Society and its
Aims — The Common Foundation of all Religions — Thesophy : the Scientific Basis of
Religion — Theosophy : its Friends and Enemies — The Occult Sciences — Spiritualism and
I'heosophy — India : Past, Present, and Future — The Civilisation that India needs — The
Spirit of the Zoroastrian Religion — the Life of Buddha and its Lessons, &c.

The Manchester Examiner describes these lectures as " rich in interest
AND suggestiveness," and says that "the theosophy expounded in this
volume is at once a theology, a metaphysic, and a sociology," and concludes
a lengthy notice by stating that " Colonel Olcott's volume deserves, and will
repay, the study of all readers for whom the byways of speculation have an
irresistible charm."

Demy 8z'o, pp. xii. and 324, Cloth ^ \os. 6d.

Incidents in the Life of Madame

Blavatsky.

Compiled from Information supplied by Her
Relatives and Friends,

And Edited by A. P. SINNETT.

With a Portrait Reproduced from an Original Painting bv

Hermann Schmiechen.

Contents : — Childhood — Marriage and Travel — At Home in Russia, 1858 — Mme. de
Jelihowskj''s Narrative — From Apprenticeship to Duty — Residence in America — Estab-
lished in India — A Visit to Europe, &c.

Truth says : — "For any credulous friend who revels in such stories I can
recommend 'Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky.' I read every
line of the book with much interest."

Theosophists will find both edification and interest in the book.

Post 8vo, pp. viii. and 350, C/oth £z/t, ys. 6d.

The Blood Covenant, a
Primitive Rite,

And its Bearings on Scripture.

By H. clay TRUMBULL, D.D.

Contents : — The Prhnitive Rite Itself.— {i) Sources of Bible Study — (2) An Ancient
Semitic Rite — (3) The Primitive Rite in Africa — (4) Traces of the Rite in Europe —
(5) World-wide Sweep of the Rite,— (6) Light from the Classics— (7) The Bond of the
Covenant,— (8) The Rite and its Token in Egypt— (9) Other Gleams of the Rite.
Suggestions and Perversions of tlte Rite. — (i) Sacredness of Blood and of the Heart —
(2) Vivifying Power of Blood — (3) A new Nature through new Blood — (4) Life from
any Blood, and by a Touch — (5) Inspiration through Blood— (6) Inter-communion through
Blood— (7) Symbolic Substitutes for Blood — (8) Blood Covenant Involvings. Indications
of the Rite in the Bibie.—if) Limitations of Inquiry— (2) Primitive Teachings of Blood —

(3) The Blood Covenant in Circumcision— (41 The Blood Covenant Tested— (5) The Blood
Covenant and its Tokens in the Passover— (6) The Blood Covenant at Sinai— (7) ihe
Blood Covenant in the Mosaic Ritual— (8) The Primitive Rite Illustrated— (9) Ihe Blood
Covenant in the Gospels— (10) The Blood Covenant applied. Importance of this Kite
strangely undervalued— Life in the Blood, in the Heart, in the Liver— Transmigration
of Souls— The Blood-rite in Burmah— Blood-stained Tree of the Covenant— Blood-
drinking— Covenant Cutting— Blood-bathing— Blood-ransoming— The Covenant-reminder
—Hints of Blood Union — Topical Index — Scriptural Index.

"An admirable .study of a primitive belief and custom — one of the utmost
importance in considering the growth of civilisation. ... In thedetails of
the work will be found much to attract the attention of the curious. Its
fundamental and essential value, however, is for the student of religions ; and
all such will be grateful to Dr Trumbull for this solid, instructive, and

ENLIGHTENING WORK." — Scotstuau.

Post Svo, pp. xiii. and 220, Cloth, \os. dd.

The Life

OF

Philippus Theophrastus, Bombast of Hohenheim,

KNOWN BY THE NAME OF

Paracelsus.

And the Substance of his Teachings concerning

Cosmology, Anthropology, Pneumatology, Magic

AND Sorcery, Medicine, Alchemy and

Astrology, Philosophy

AND ThEOSOPHY.

Extracted and Translated from his Rare and Extensive
Works, and from some Unpublished Manuscripts,

By FRANZ HARTMANN, M.D.

Contents: — The Life of Paracelsus — Explanation of Terms— Cosmologj' — Anthropology
— Pneumatology — Magic and Sorcery — Medicine — Alchemy and Astrology- — Philosophy
and Theosophy — Appendix.

St James's Gazette describes this as "a book which will have some per-
manent value to the student of the occult," and says that "Students
should be grateful for this book, despite its setting of Theosophical

nonsense."

Crown 8vo, pp. x. and 124, Parchment, ds.

The Raven.

By EDGAR ALLAN POE.
With Literary and Historical Commentary by John H. Ingram.

Contents: — Genesis — The Raven, with Variorum Readings — History — Isadore —
Translations : French — German — Hungarian — Latin — Fabrications — Parodies — Biblio-
g raphy — Index.

"An interesting monograph on Poe's famous poem." — Spectator.

" There is no more reliable authority on the subject than Mr
John H. Ingram. Much curious information is collected in his essay.
The volume is well printed and tastefully bound in spotless vellum." —
Publishers Cii'Ctdar.

Crown 8vo., pp. viii. and 184, Cloth, 2s. 6d.

Burma as it was, as it is, and

as it will be.

By JAMES GEORGE SCOTT.
{Shway Voe.)

Contents: — I. The History — Burma according to Native Theories — Origin of the Bur-
mese— Early History — First appearance of Europeans in Burma — Worrying our Repre-
sentatives— War with Burma — The Inevitable End. II. The Country — Lower Burma —
Upper Burma — The Irrawaddy to Mandalay — Mandalay — The Irrawaddyabove Mandalay.
III. The People — Burmese Kings — Burmese Officials — The Hloat-daw — The Officers of
the Household — Method of Appointment and Payment — The People — Their Faults —
Excellence as Buddhists — Doctrine of Good Works — Superstitions — Lucky and Unlucky
Days — The most Sociable of Men — Freedom of the Women — A Nation of Smokers —
Contented with British Rule — Ascendency of the Chinaman Trade — Hill-tribes — Their
Religion — Hope for the Nomads — The Kachyens.

The Saturday Review says : — " Before going to help to govern them,
Mr Scott has once more written on the Burmese . . . Mr Scott claims
to have covered the whole ground, and as there is nobody competent to
criticise him except himself, we shall not presume to say how far he has
succeeded. What, however, may be asserted with absolute confidence is,
that he has written A bright, readable, and useful book."

Croivn Svo, pp. xxviii. and 184, Cloth^ 5^.

The History of Tithes,

From Abraham to Queen Victoria.

By henry W. CLARKE.

Contents :— The History of Tithes before the Christian Era— From the Christian Era
to A.D. 400— From a.d. 400 to a.d. 787 — From a.d. 787 to a.d. iooo — From a.d. loaoto a.d.
T215 — From a.d. 1215 to the Dissolution of Monasteries — Monasteries — Infeudations —
Exemption from Paying Tithes— The Dissolution of Monasteries — The Commutation Act
of 1836, 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 71— Tithes in the City and Liberties of London— Redemption
of Tithe Rent Charge— Some Remarks on "A Defence of the Church of England against
Disestablishment," by the Earl of Selborne.

"An impartial and valuable array of facts and figures, which should be read
by all who ai"e interested in the solution of the tithe problem." — Athemcum.

*'The best book of moderate size yet published for the purpose of
enabling an ordinary reader to thoroughly understand the origin and history
of this ancient impost." — Literary World.

Crown SvOj pp. xl. and 395, Cloth extra, ']s. 6d.

Essays in the Study of
Folk-Songs.

By the Countess EVELYN MARTINENGO-CESARESCO.

Contents : — The Inspiration of Death in Folk-Poetry — Nature in Folk-Songs — Armenian
Folk-Songs — Venetian Folk-Songs — Sicilian Folk-Songs — Greek Songs of Calabria — Folk-
Songs of Provence — The White Paternoster — The Diffusion of Ballads — Songs for the Rite
of May — The Idea of Fate in Southern Traditions — Folk-Lullabies — Folk Dirges, &c.

The Saturday Review, concluding a page-notice of this book, sums it up as
"an admirable volume, a volume remarkable for knowledge, sympathy, and
good taste."

"This is a very delightful book, full of information and
THOUGHTFUL SUGGESTIONS. " — Standard.

"The Countess is, or should be, a well-known authority among special
students of this branch of literature." — Daily News.

Large Paper Edition, Royal ^vo, pp. xvi. and 60, 7^-. dd.

An Essay on the Genius of
George Cruikshank.

By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

Reprinted Verbatim from " The Westminster Review y

Edited with a Prefatory Note on Thackeray as an
Artist and Art Critic, by W. E. Church.

With Upwards of Forty Illustrations, including all the
Original Woodcuts, and a new Portrait of Cruikshank

ETCHED BY F. W. PaILTHORPE.

As the original copy of the Westminster is now excessively rare, this
re-issue will no doubt be welcomed by collectors. The new portrait of
Cruikshank by F. W. Pailthorpe is a clear firm etching.

Pp. 102, Cloth y 2s. 6d.

Pope Joan

(THE FEMALE POPE);

A Historical Study.

Translated from the Greek of Emmanuel Rhoidis,

with Preface by

CHARLES HASTINGS COLLETTE.

Frontispiece taken from the ancient MS. Nuremberg
Chronicle, preserved at Cologne.

*' The subject of Pope Joan will always have its attractions for the lovers of
the curiosities of history. Rhoidis discusses the topic with much learning and
ingenuity, and Mr Collette's Introduction is full of information."' — Globe.

Crown Svo, pp. 40, printed on hand-made paper, Vellwn Gilt, 6s.

The Bibliography of Swinburne ;

A Bibliographical List, Arranged in Chronological

Order, of the Published Writings, in Verse and

Prose, of Algernon Charles Swinburne

(1857-1887).

Only 250 copies printed. The compiler, writing on April 5, 1887, says:—
*'Born on April 5, 1837, in the year of Queen Victoria's Accession, of which
the whole nation is now celebrating the Jubilee, Algernon Charles Swinburne
to-day attains the jubilee or 50th year of his own life, and may therefore be
claimed as an essentially and exclusively Victorian poet."

Indispensable to Swinburne Collectors.

Demj' Sz>o, pp. xxiv. and 104, Clot/i extra, Js. 6d.

The Astrologer's Guide

(ANIMA ASTROLOGI^) ;

Or, A Guide for Astrologers.

BEING

The One Hundred and Forty-Six Considerations of
THE Famous Astrologer, Guido Bonatus, Trans-
lated FROM THE Latin by Henry Coley,

TOGETHER WITH

The Choicest Aphorisms of the Seven Segments

of Jerome Cardan of Milan, Edited by

William Lilly (1675).

Now FIRST Republished from a Unique Copy of the
Original Edition, with Notes and a Preface, by

WM. C. ELDON SERJEANT,
fellow of the theosophical society.

" Mr Serjeant deserves the thanks of all who are interested in astrology for
rescuing this important work from obUvion. . . . The growing interest in
mystical science will lead to a revival of astrological study, and advanced
students will find this book an indispensable addition to their
libraries. The book is well got up and printed." — Theosophist.

idmo^ pp. xvi. and 148, Cloth extra ^ 2s.

Tobacco Talk and Smokers'

Gossip.

An Amusing Miscellany of Fact and Anecdote Relating

TO THE " Great Plant " in all its Forms and

Uses, Including a Selection from

Nicotian Literature.

Contents : — A Tobacco Parliament — Napoleon's First Pipe — A Dutch Poet and
Napoleon's Snuff-Box — Frederick the Great as an Ass— Too Small for Two — A Smoking
Empress — The Smoking Princesses — An Incident on the G.W.R — Raleigh's Tobacco Box —
Bismarck's Last Cigar — Bismarck's Cigar Story — Moltke's Pound of Snuff^Lord Brougham
as a Smoker — Mazzini's Sang-froid as a Smoker — Lord Clarendon as a Smoker — Politics
and Snuff-Boxes — Penn and Tobacco — Tobacco and the Papacy — The Snuff-MuU in the
Scotch Kirk— Whateley as a Snuff-Taker— The First Bishop who Smoked— Pigs and
Smokers — Jesuits' Snuff — Kemble Pipes — An Ingenious Smoker — Anecdote of Dean
Aldrich — Smoking to the Glory of God — Professor Huxley on Smoking — Blucher's Pipe-
Master — Shakespeare and Tobacco — Ben Jonson on Tobacco — Lord Byron on Tobacco —
Decamps and Horace Vernet — Milton's Pipe — Anecdote of Sir Isaac Newton — Emerson and
Carlyle — Paley and his Pipe — Jules Sandeau on the Cigar — The Pickwick of Fleet Street —
The Obsequio of Havana — The Social Pipe ( Thackerayy—Tx'wiva^h. of Tobacco over Sack
and Ale — The Smoking Philosopher — Sam Slick on the Virtues of a Pipe — Smoking in 1610
— Bulwer-Lytton on Tobacco-Smoking — Professor Sedgwick — St Pierre on the Effect of
Tobacco — Ode to Tobacco (C. 6". Calverley) — Meat and Drink {CJuirles Kingsley) — The
Meerschaum {O. W. Holmes) — Charles Kingsley at Eversley— Robert Bums's Snuff-Box —
Robinson Crusoe's Tobacco — Guizot — Victor Hugo — Mr Buckle as a Smoker — Carlyle on
Tobacco — A Poet's Pipe {Baudelaire) — A Pipe of Tobacco — The Headsman's Snuff-box —
The Pipe and Snuff-box {jCmvper) — Anecdote of Charles Lamb — Gibbon as a Snuff-Taker —
Charles Lamb as a Smoker — Farewell to Tobacco {CJias. Latnb) — The Power of Smoke
{Thackeray) — Thackeray as a Smoker — Dickens as a Smoker — Chewing and Spitting in
America — Tennyson as a Smoker — A Smoker's Opinion of Venice — Coleridge's First Pipe
— Richard Porson — Cruikshank and Tobacco — Mr James Payn — Mr Swinburne on
Raleigh — The Anti-Tobacco Party — "This Indian Weed" — Dr Abernethy on Snuff-Taking
— Abernethy and a Smoking Patient — Tobacco and the Plague — "The Greatest Tobacco
Stopper in all England " — Dr Richardson on Tobacco — Advice to Smokers — Some Strange
Smokers— The Etymology of Tobacco— The Snuff called "Irish Blackguard"— A Snuff-
Maker's Sign— Mr Sala's Cigar- Shop— Death of the "Yard of Clay"— A Prodigious
Smoker — A Professor of Smoking — Tobacco in Time of War — Ages attained by Great
Smokers— A Maiden's Wish — " Those Dreadful Cigars " — How to take a Pinch of Snuffs
The Tobacco Plant — Fate of an Early Smoker — Adding Insult to Injury — Tom Brown on
Smoking — The Snuff-Taker — Tobacco in North America — National Characteristics —
Smoking at School — Carlyle on " The Veracities " — Children's Pipes — The Uses of Cigar
Ash — An Inveterate Smoker — A Tough Yarn — Some French Smokers — Riddles for Smokers
— Cigar Manufacturing in Havana.

" One of the best books of gossip we have met for some time. ... It
is literally crammed full from beginning to end of its 148 pages with well-
selected anecdotes, poems, and excerpts from tobacco literature and history. "
— Graphic.

" The smoker should be grateful to the compilers of this pretty little
volume. . . . No smoker should be without it, and anti-tobacconists
have only to turn over its leaves to be converted." — Fa// Mall Gazette.

"Something to please smokers; and non-smokers may be interested in
tracing the effect of tobacco — the fatal, fragrant herb — on our literature." —
Literaty World.

Demy Svo, pp. xliii. and 349, tvith Illustrations, Cloth extra, lOs. 6d.

The Mysteries of Magic ;

A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi.

With Biographical and Critical Essay
By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE.

Contents: — Initiatory Exercises and Preparations — Religious and Philoso-
I'HiCAL Problems and Hypotheses — The Hermetic Axiom, Faith — The True God— '1 he
Christ of God — Mysteries of the Logos — The True Religion — The Reason of Prodigies, or
the Devil before Science — Scientific and Magical Theorems — On Numbers and their
Virtues — Theory of Will Power — The Translucid — The great Magic Agent, or the
Mysteries of the Astral Light — Magic Equilibrium — The Magic Chain — The great Magic
Arcanum — The Doctrine of Spiritual Essences, or Kabbalistic Pneumatics ; with
the Mysteries of Evocation, Necromancy, and Black Magic — Immortality—The
Astral Body — Unity and Solidarity of Spirits — The great Arcanum of Death, or Spiritual
Transition, Hierarchy, and Classification of Spirits — Fluidic Phantoms and their Mysteries
— Elementary Spirits and the Ritual of their Conjuration — Necromancy — Mysteries of the
Pentagram and other Pantacles — Magical Ceremonial and Consecration of Talismans —
Black Magic and the Secrets of the Witches — Sabbath — Witchcraft and Spells — The Key
of Mesmerism — Modern Spiritualism — The great Practical Secrets or Realisations
of Magical Science — The " Magnum Opus" — The Universal Medicine — Renewed Youth —
Transformations — Divination — Astrology — The Tarot, the Book of Hermes, or of Koth —
Eternal Life, or Profound Peace — Epilogue — Supplement — The Kabbalah — Thaumatur-
gical Experiences of Eliphas Levi — Evocation of Apollonius of Tyana — Ghosts in Paris —
The Magician and the Medium — Eliphas Levi and the Sect of Eugene Vintras— The
Magician and the Sorcerer — Secret History of the Assassination of the Archbishop of Paris
— Notes.

" Of the many remarkable men who have gained notoriety by their profici-
ency, real or imaginary, in the Black Arts, probably none presents a more
strange and irreconcileable character than the French magician Alphonse Louis
Constant. . . . Better known under the Jewish pseudonym of Eliphas
Levi Zahed, this enthusiastic student of forbidden art made some stir in
France, and even in London. . . . His WORKS ON MAGIC ARE THOSE OF
AN UNDOUBTED GENIUS, and divulge a philosophy beautiful in conception, if

totally opposed to common sense principles There is so great a fund

of learning and of attractive reasoning in these writings, that Mr Arthur
Edward Waite has published a digest of them for the benefit of English
readers. This gentleman has not attempted a literal translation in every
case, but has arranged a volume which, while reproducing with sufficient
accuracy a great portion of the more interesting works, affords an excellent
idea of the scope of the entire literary remains of an enthusiast for whom he
entertains a profound admiration. . . . The reader may with profit peruse
carefully the learned dissertations penned by M. Constant upon the Hermetic
art treated as a religion, a philosophy, and a natural science. ... In view
of the remarkable exhibitions of mesmeric influence and thought reading
which have been recently given, it is not improbable that the thoughtful
reader may find a clue in the writings of this cultured and amiable magician
to the secret of many of the manifestations of witchcraft that formerly struck

wonder and terror into the hearts of simple folks. . . ." — The Morning
Post.

"The present single volume is a digest of half-a-dozen books enumerated
by the present author in a 'biographical and critical essay' with which
he prefaces his undertaking. These are the Dogme et Ritual de la Haute
Magie, the Histoire de la Magie, the Clef des Grands Afysteres, the
Sorcier de Mendon^ the Philosophie Occulte, and the Science des Esprits.
To attack the whole series — which, indeed, it might be difficult to obtain
now in a complete form — would be a bold undertaking, but Mr Waite
has endeavoured to give his readers the essence of the whole six books in a
relatively compact compass. . . . The book before us is encyclopedic
IN ITS RANGE, and it would be difficult to find a single volume which is better
calculated to supply modern inquiries with a general conception of the scope
and purpose of the occult sciences at large. It freely handles, amongst
others, the ghastly topics of witchcraft and black magic, but certainly
it would be difficult to imagine any reader tempted to enter those pathways
of experiment by the picture of their character and purpose that Eliphas Levi
supplies. In this way the intrepid old Kabbalist, though never troubling his
readers with sublime exhortations in the interests of virtue, writes under the
inspiration of an uncompromising devotion to the loftiest ideals, and all his
philosophy ' makes for righteousness.' " — Mr A. P. Sinnett in Light.

"We are grateful to Mr Waite for translating the account of how L^vi, in
a lone chamber in London, called up the spirit of Apollonius of Tyana,
This very creepy composition is written in quite the finest manner of the late
Lord Lytton when he was discoursing upon the occult." — The Saturday
Review.

Demy iSmo, pp. vi. and 132, ivith Woodctits, Fancy Cloth, \s.

John Leech, Artist and
Humourist.

A Biographical Sketch.

By FRED. F. KITTON.

New Edition, Revised.

" In the absence of a fuller biography we cordially welcome Mr Kitton's
interesting little sketch." — Notes atid Queries.

"The multitudinous admirers of the famous artist will find this touching
monograph well worth careful reading and preservation." — Daily Chronicle.

"The very model of what such a memoir should be." — Graphic.

4^0, zvith Frontispiece, pp. xxx. and 154, ParcJvnejit, los. 6d.

THE HERMETIC WORKS.

The Virgin of the World

OF

Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus.

Now FIRST Rendered into English, with Essay,
Introductions, and Notes,

By DR anna KINGSFORD and EDWARD MAITLAND,

AUTHORS OF "THE PERFECT WAY."

Published under the auspices of the Hermetic Society. Essays on "The
Hermetic Books," by E. M., and on "The Hermetic System and the
Significance of its Present Revival," by A. K. " The Virgin of the World "
is followed by " Asclepios on Initiation," the " Definitions of Asclepios,"
and the " Fragments of Hermes."

It will be a most interesting study for eveiy occultist to compare the
doctrines of the ancient Hermetic philosophy with the teaching of the
Vedantic and Buddhist systems of religious thought. The famous books
OF Hermes seem to occupy, with reference to the Egyptian religion, the
same position which the Upanishads occupy in Aryan religious literature." —
Theosophist, November, 1SS5.

Imperial 16/no, pp. 16, zurappei', printed on Whatman'' s hand-made paper.
250 copies only, each ntwibered. ^s.

A Word for the Navy.

By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

"Mr Swinburne's new patriotic song, ' A Word for the Navy,' is as fiery
in its denunciation of those he believes to be antagonistic to the welfare of the
country as was his lyric with which he startled the readers of the Times one
mornins:. " — Athemeiim.

The publisher of this poem is also the sole proprietor of the copyright ; it cajinot
therefore be ittcluded in Mr Siuinburne^s collected ivorks.

4^0, pp. 121, Illustrated zvith a number of beautiful Symbolical Figures,

Parchment gilt, price los. 6d.

ASTROLOGY THEOLOGIZED.

The Spiritual Hermeneutics of
Astrology and Holy Writ.

Being a Treatise upon the Influence of the Stars

ON Man and on the Art of Ruling Them by

the Law of Grace.

{Reprinted from the original of 1 649.)

With a Prefatory Essay ox the True Method of
Interpreting Holy Scripture,

By anna bonus KINGSFORD.

Illustrated with Engravings on Wood.

Contents: — What Astrology is, and what Theology; and how they have reference
one to another — Concerning the Subject of Astrology — Of the three parts of Man;
Spirit, Soul, and Body, from whence every one is taken, and how one is in the other —
Of the Composition of the Microcosm, that is Man, from the Macrocosm, the great World —
That all kind of Sciences, Studies, Actions, and Lives, flourishing amongst Men on the
Earth and Sea, do testify that all Astrology, that is, Natural Wisdom, with all its Species,
is and is to be really found in every Man. And so all things, whatsoever Men act on
Earth, are produced, moved, governed, and acted from the Inward Heaven. And what
are the Stars which a Wise Man ought to rule. Touching a double Firmament and Star
in every Man; and that by the Benefit of Regeneration in the Exercise of the Sabbath, a
Man may be transposed from a worse nature into a better — Touching the Distribution of
all Astrology into the Seven Governors of the World, and their Operations and Offices, as
well in the Macrocosm as in the Microcosm — Touching the Astrology of Saturn, of what
kind it is, and how it ought to be Theologized — A Specifical Declaration, how the Astrology
of Saturn in Man ought to be and may be Theologized.

The Stjaf?ies^s Gazette says : — " It is well for Dr Anna Kingsford that she
was not born into the sidereal world four hundred years ago. Had that been
her sorry fate, she would assuredly have been burned at the stake for her
preface to ' Astrology Theologized.' It is a very long preface — more than
half the length of the treatise it introduces ; it contains some of the
FINEST FLOWERS OF THEOSOPHICAL PHILOSOPHY, and of course makes
very short work of Christianity."

Cro7vnS>vo, pp. ^6, printed on Whatman'' s Handmade Paper, Velhtm Gilt, (a.

Hints to Collectors

Of Original Editions of the Works of
Charles Dickens.

By CHARLES PLUMPTRE JOHNSON.

Including Books, Plays, and Portraits, there are 167 items fully described.

" This is a sister volume to the * Hints to Collectors of First Editions of
Thackeray,' which we noticed a month or two ago. As we are unable
to detect any slips in his work, we must content ourselves with thanking
him for the correctness of his annotations. It is unnecessary to repeat our
praise of the Q!i^gzxii format of these books." — Academy.

Cro7vn Zvo^ pp. 48, printed on Whatman'' s Handmade Paper, Velhim Gilt, bs.

Hints to Collectors

Of Original Editions of the Works of William

Makepeace Thackeray.

By CHARLES PLUMPTRE JOHNSON.

" . . . .A guide to those who are great admirers of Thackeray, and are
collecting first editions of his works. The dainty little volume, bound
in parchment and printed on hand-made paper, is very concise and convenient
in form ; on each page is an exact copy of the title-page of the work
mentioned thereon, a collation of pages and illustrations, useful hints on the
differences in editions, with other matters indispensable to collectors.
. . . Altogether it represents a large amount of labour and experience." —
Spectator.

LaTge Crown %vo^ pp. xxxii. and 324, Cloth extra. Gilt Top, los. 6d.

Sea Song and River Rhyme,

From Chaucer to Tennyson.

SELECTED AND EDITED BY

ESTELLE DAVENPORT ADAMS.

With a New Poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

With Twelve Etchings.

In general, the Songs and Poetical Extracts are limited to those which
deal with the Sea and Rivers as natural objects, and are either descriptive or
reflective. The Etchings are printed in different colours ; the headpieces are
also original.

"The book is, on the whole, otie of the best of its kind ever published.'''' —
Glasgozu Herald.

"The editor has made the selection with praiseworthy judgment." —
Morning Post.

" Twelve really exquisite and delicately executed etchings of sea and river-
side accompany and complete THIS BEAUTIFUL VOLUME." — Morning Post.

"A special anthology, delightful in itself, and possessing the added graces
of elegant printing and dainty illustrations." — Scotsman.

"The volume is got up in the handsomest style, and includes a dozen
etchings of sea and river scenes, some of which are exquisite." — Literary
IVorld.

Croivji Svo, pp. xl. and 420, Cloth extra, \os. 6d.

The History of the Forty Vezirs;

Or, The Story of the Forty Morns and Eves.

Written in Turkish by SHEYKH-ZADA ;
Done into English by E. J. W. GIBB, M.R.A.S.

The celebrated Turkish romance, translated from a printed but undated
text procured a few years ago in Constantinople.

"A delightful addition to the wealth of Oriental stories available to
English readers. . . . Mr Gibb has considerately done everything to help
the reader to an intelligent appreciation of this charming book." —
Saturday Review.

Sir Richard F. Burton says : — " In my opinion, the version is definite
and final. The style is light and pleasant, with the absolutely necessary
flavour of quaintness ; and the notes, though short and few, are sufficient and
satisfactory."

Complete in 12 Vols. £'^, i6s. 6tl. nett.

The Antiquarian Magazine and

Bibliographer.

Edited by
KDWARD WALFORD, MA. AND G. W. REDWAY, F.R.H.S.

This illustrated periodical, highly esteemed by students of English
antiquities, biography, folk-lore, bibliography, numismatics, genealogy,
&c., was founded in 1 882 by Mr Edward Walford, and completed in
1887 under the editorship of Mr G. W. Redway. Only some thirty
COMPLETE SETS REMAIN, and they are offered at a very moderate price.

Contents of Vols. XI. and XII.: — Domesday Book — Frostiana — Some Kentish
Proverbs — The Literature of Almanacks — " Madcap Harry " and Sir John Popham —
Tom Coryate and his Crudities — Notes on John Wilkes and Boswell's Life of Johnson —
The Likeness of Christ — The Life, Times, and Writings of Thomas Fuller — Society in the
Elizabethan Age — Chapters from Family Chests — Collection of Parodies — Rarities in
the Locker-Lampson Collection — A Day with the late Mr Edward Solly — The Defence
of England in the i6th Century — The Ordinary from Mr Thomas Jenyn's Booke
of Armes — A Forgotten Cromwellian Tomb — Visitation of the Monasteries in the Reign
of Henry the Eighth — The Rosicrucians — The Seilliere Library — A Lost Work — Romances
of Chivalry — Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland — The Art of
the Old English Potter — The Story of the Spanish Armada — Books for a Reference Library
— Myth-Land — Sir Bevis of Hampton — Cromwell and the Saddle Letter of Charles L —
Recent Discoveries at Rome — Folk-Lore of British Birds — An old Political Broadside
— Notes for Coin Collectors — Higham Priory — By-Ways of Periodical Literature — Memoir
of Captain Dalton — A History of the Parish of Mortlake, in the County of Surrey —
Historic Towns — Exeter — Traits and Stories of Ye 01 de Cheshire Cheese — The Pre-
History of the North — The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman — The
Curiosities of Ale — The Books and Bookmen of Reading — How to trace a Pedigree —
The Language of the Law — Words, Idioms, &c„ of the Vulgar — The Romans in
Cumbria — The Study of Coins — An Un-bowdlerised Boccaccio — The Kabbalah — The
House of Aldus — Bookselling in Little Britain — Copper-plates and Woodcuts by the
Bewicks — Excavations at Ostia — Sir Sages of Somerset — The Good Queen Bertha — The
popular Drama of the Pa=t — Relics of Astrologic Idioms — A Leaf from an Old Account
Book — The Romance of a Gibbet — General Pardons — Thorscross or Thurscross( Yorkshire) —
The Genesis of " In Memoriam " — The Influence of Italian upon English Literature —
The Trade Signs of Essex — The Ancient Cities of the New World — The Legendarj'
History of the Cross — History of Runcorn — The Rosicrucians ; their Rites and Mysteries —
Old Glasgow Families — The House of Aldus — Merlin, the Prophet of the Celts — A
facetious Advertisement — Funeral Garlands — Bookselling on London Bridge — Millom
Cumberland — A forgotten Children's Book of Charles Dickens — The Rothschilds; a
Trilogy of the Life to come — The Beer of the Bible — Story of the Drama in Exeter —
By-Ways of Periodical Literature — Reading Anecdotes — Tennysonian and Thackerayan
Rarities — The Origin and History of Change Ringing — More Vulgar Words and Phrases —
The popular Drama of the past — Some Poems attributed to Byron — The Marriage of
Cupid and Psyche — Sketches of Life in Japan — The first nine years of the Bank of
England — The Brunswick Accession — History of the Bassandyne Bible — Peculiar Courts —
Vulgar Etymologies — Nuremburg — Metal Pan-making in England — The Pews of the
Past — Octocentenary of the Death of William the Conqueror — A Black Magician — The
Allegorical Signification of the Tinctures in Heraldry — The Purpose of the Ages — The

Sieges of Pontefract Castle—A Life of John Colet — The History of Sport in Cheshire —
Tom Coryat and his Crudities — The Tarot : an Antique Method of Divination — Law
French — The Pews of the Past— Shropshire Folk-Lore — The Printed Book— St Mary
Overies Priory Church, Southwark — Some curious passages from Baker's Chronicle — The
resting-place of Cromwell — A Library of Rarities — Europe in the reign of James the
Sixth — Myths, Scenes, and Worthies of Somerset — Herefordshire Words and Phrases —
Chronicles of an Old Inn — Epitaphs — The Gnostics and their Remains — Collectanea —
Meetings of Learned Societies — News and Notes — Obituary Memoirs — Correspondence —
Vos Valete et Plaudite.

Large Demy Svo, pp. xx. and 268, Cloth, \os. 6d.

Sultan Stork;

And other Stories and Sketches.

By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

(1829-1844.)

Now First Collected.

To WHICH IS ADDED THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ThACKERAY, REVISED

AND Considerably Enlarged.

Contains two unpublished letters of A.'C. Swinburne, Thackeray's contributions to "The
National Standard," ''The Snob," also " Dickens in France," " Letters on the Fine Arts,"
" Elizabeth Brownrigge : A Tale,"" &c.

" Thackeray collectors, however, have only to be told that none of the

PIECES NOW PRINTED APPEAR IN THE TWO VOLUMES RECENTLY ISSUED by

Messrs Smith, Elder, & Co., in order to make them desire their possession.
They will also welcome the revision of the Bibliography, since it now
presents a complete list, arranged in chronological order, of Thackeray's
published writings in prose and verse, and also of his sketches and drawings."
— Daily Chronicle.

" ' Sultan Stork' .... is undoubtedly the work of Mr Thackeray, and
is quite pretty and funny enough to have found a place in his collected
miscellanies. ' Dickens in France ' is as good in its way as Mr Thackeray's
analysis of Alexander Dumas ' ' Kean ' in the ' Paris Sketch-Book. ' . . .
There are other slight sketches in this volume which are evidently by Mr
Thackeray, and several of his obiter dicta in them are worth preserving. . . .
We do not assume to fix Mr Thackeray's rank or to appraise his merits as an
art critic. We only know that, in our opinion, few of his minor writings are
so pleasant to read as his shrewd and genial comments on modern painters
and paintings." — Saturday Revie^v.

"Admirers of Thackeray may be grateful for a Reprint of
* SuLTAN Stork.'" — Athencstwi.

Detiiy 8^'<?, pp. viii. and 6S, Parchmeni, ']$. 6</.

Primitive Symbolism as
Illustrated in Phallic Worship ;

Or, The Reproductive Principle.

By HODDER M. WESTROPP.
With an Introduction by General Forlong.

" This work is a viulhim in parvo of the growth and spread of Phallicism,
as we commonly call the worship of nature or fertilizing powers. I felt, when
solicited to enlarge and illustrate it on the sudden death of the lamented
author, that it would be desecration to touch so complete a compendium
by one of the most competent and soundest thinkers who have
WRITTEN ON THIS WORLD-WIDE FAITH. None knew better or saw more
clearly than Mr Westropp that in this oldest symbolism and worship lay the
foundations of all the goodly systems we call Religions. " — ^J. G. R. Forlong.

"A well-selected repertory of facts illustrating this subject, which should
be read by all who are interested in the study of the growth of religions." —
Westmhister Review.

Fcap. Svo, 80 pp., Vellum, \os. 6d.

Beauty and the Beast;

Or, a Rough Outside with a Gentle Heart.

A Poem.
By CHARLES LAMB.

Now FIRST Reprinted from the Original Edition of 181 i,
WITH Preface and Notes by Richard Herne Shepherd.

For three quarters of a century this charming fragment of Lamb's genius
lay buried ; even the author seems to have forgotten its existence, since
we find no reference, either direct or indirect, to the little tale in Lamb's
published correspondence, or in any of the Lamb books. The credit of a
discovery highly interesting to all lovers of Charles Lamb is due to the
industry and sagacity of Mr John Pearson, formerly of 15 York Street,
Covent Garden.

The publisher has now endeavoured to place the booklet beyond future
chance of loss by reproducing one hundred copies for the use of libraries
and collectors.

\^mo, pp. xxvi. and I'j^, Cloth extj-a, 2s.

Wellerisms,

From " Pickwick " and " Master Humphrey's

Clock."

Selected by CHARLES F. RIDEAL,
And Edited, with an Introduction, by CHARLES KENT.

Among the Contents are : — Sam Weller's Introduction — Old Weller at Doctor's Commons —
Sam on a Legal Case — Self-acting Ink — Out with It — Sam's Old White Hat — Independent
Voters — Proud o' the Title — The Weller Philosophy — The Twopenny Rope — Job Trotter's
Tears — Sam's INIisgivings as to Mr Pickwick — Clear the Way for the Wheelbarrow — Unpack-
ing the Lunch Hamper — Battledore and Shuttlecock — A True Londoner — Spoiling the Beadle
— Old Weller's Remedy for the Gout — Sam on Cabs — Poverty and Oysters — Old Weller on
Pikes — Sam's Power of Suction — Veller and Gammon — Sam as Master of the Ceremonies —
Sam before Mr Nupkins — Sam's Introduction to Mary and the Cook — Something behind the
Door — Sam and Master Bardell — Good Wishes to Messrs Dodson & Fogg — Sam and his
Mother-in-Law — The Shepherd's Water Rates — Stiggins as an Arithmetician — Sam and the
Fat Boy — Compact and Comfortable — Apologue of the Fat Man's Watch — Medical Students
— Sam Subpoenaed — Disappearance of the " Sausage " Maker — Sam Weller's Valentine — Old
Weller's Plot — Tea Drinking at Brick Lane — The Soldier's Evidence Inadmissible — Sam's
" Wision" Limited — A Friendly " Swarry" — The Killebeate— Sam and the Surly Groom —
Mr Pickwick's Dark Lantern — The Little Dirty-faced Man — Old'Weller Inexorable — Away
with Melancholy — Post Boys and Donkeys — A Vessel — Old Weller's Threat — Sam's Dis-
missal of the Fat Boy— Is she a " Widder"?— Bill Blinder's Request— The Watch-box
Boy.

*'.... The best sayings of the immortal Sam and his sportive parent
are collected here. The book may be taken up for a few minutes with the
certainty of affording amusement, and it can be carried away in the pocket.'^
— Literary World.

" It was a very good idea . . . the extracts are very numerous , . . here
nothing is missed.'' — Glasgoiv Herald.

Demy ^vo, pp. 99, zuith Protractor and 16 plates, coloured and plain.

Cloth gilt, Js. 6d.

Geometrical Psychology ;

Or, The Science of Representation.

An Abstract of the Theories and Diagrams of

B. W. Betts.

By LOUISA S. COOK.

"His attempt seems to have taken a similar direction to that of George
Boole in logic, with the difference that, whereas Boole's expression of the
Laws of Thought is algebraic, Betts' expresses mind-growth geometrically;

that is to Eay, his growth-formulae are expressed in numerical series, of which
each can be pictured to the eye in a corresponding curve. When the series
are thus represented, they are found to resemble the forms of leaves and
flowers." — Alary Boole, in " Symbolic Methods of Study ^

The Pall Mall Gazette, in a characteristic article entitled, " Very Methodi-
cal Madness," allows that " Like Rosicrucianism, esoteric Buddhism, and
other forms of the mystically incomprehensible, it seems to exercise a
magnetic influence upon many minds by no means as foolish as its original
inventor's."

" This work is the result of more than twenty years' application to the dis-
covery of a method of representing human consciousness in its various stages of
development by means of geometrical figures — it is, in fact, THE APPLICATION
OF MATHEMATICAL SYMBOLOGY TO METAPHYSICS. This idea will be new
to many of our readers ; indeed, so far as we know, Mr Betts is the only
man who has tried to work out a coherent system of this kind, though his
work unfortunately remains imperfect." — Theosophist, June 1887.

%vo, pp. 32, Wrapper^ \s.

On Mesmerism.

By a. p. SINNETT.

Issued as a Transaction of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society,
of which Mr Sinnett is President, this pamphlet forms AN admirable
INTRODUCTION to the Study of Mesmerism.

LONDON: GEORGE REDWAY.

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